It’s easy to forget that Antarctica is a desert, given that very nearly the entire continent is covered by a thick sheet of ice. But snowfall is very slow to add to that white mantle, as the cold air and ocean around Antarctica aren't exactly going to provide prodigious production of atmospheric moisture.
As its name implies, one of the driest and weirdest locales in a very weird continent is the McMurdo Dry Valleys. This area near the coast is the biggest chunk of Antarctica not covered by ice. Bare rock is found there, and not a whole lot else.
There is, however, an unusual feature known as Blood Falls. At the end of Taylor Glacier, which spills into one of the Dry Valleys (Taylor Valley, actually), a mysterious red trickle of salty, iron-rich water periodically stains the ice as it spills out like blood from a wound. It’s a good thing that it isn’t a paranormal message from ghosts warning researchers to leave the valley, because it has had the opposite effect—it draws them in. In 2012, for example, biologists looking for signs of life eking out an existence in the Dry Valleys discovered that Blood Falls contained an impressive community of microbial life.
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