There ’s lots of urine inAntarctica , but most of it is wintry . You ’d be forgive , then , for think that rivers are n’t really a thing on the continent – however , you ’d be mistaken . Antarctica is domicile to a number of waterways ( at least for a few months a year ) – the long of which , called the Onyx River , is a little bit eldritch .
Technically a meltwater stream , the Onyx River flows for 32 kilometers ( 20 stat mi ) – it ’s nothing compare to theNile ’s 6,650 klick ( 4,130 mile ) , but considering the icy landscape it cuts through , it ’s pretty telling .
Theriveris located in Antarctica ’s McMurdo Dry Valleys and winds westward from the terminus of the Wright Lower Glacier into Lake Vanda . This , most interrogatively , means it flow away from the ocean .
An example of endorheic drainage – when state - locked water systems do n’t run out into the sea – the river is this way thanks to a geologic quirk . Glaciers occlude the entryway to the Wright Valley , which means the Onyx has no choice but to flow inland , toward the ice - cover Lake Vanda .
Antarctica is home to nine such meltwater flow – but they ’re a bit different to most other river . While the likes of the Amazon and Congo begin at a craggy root ( or sources ) , as flow that finally form a river , the Onyx flows as the Wright Lower Glacier melts . It is therefore semi - permanent , forming only during the Austral summertime when temperature are high enough to thaw the chicken feed .
rainfall does n’t contribute to the streamflow , as it is very rare in the Dry Valleys , and what does fall sublimates before it can make its room into the river . However , the melting glacier generally provides ample water to keep the river menstruate – there have been severalflood eventsduring particularly strong summertime in the past couple of decades and , in 1984 , investigator from New Zealand even managed to raft down it .
With temperatures rising thanks toclimate alteration , the Onyx ’s period season is shifting earlier and becoming longer , although the intensity of weewee that courses through it seem to bedecreasing .
As well as being the largest of Antarctica ’s meltwater stream , the Onyx River is the most ecologically important . Home to its own mini - ecosystem , the river support a variety of microscopical life , from tardigrades and nematode worm to cyanobacteria and phytoplankton . Algae is also bed to bloom in its pee , though you ’ll find no fish there .
The Onyx may be the long river in Antarctica , but what ’s thelongest in the cosmos ? turn out , the answer ’s probably more complicated than you think . The same is straight for theplanet ’s oldest river , though it ’s largely fit in that that is found in Australia .
