The existence of Brinicles was discovered in 1960. Brinicles are underwater icicles, or ice stalactites. These spindly, ice fingers form in the extremely cold ocean environments of Antarctica and the Arctic. When this sea stalactite reaches the seabed, a web of ice forms freezing everything it touches including any sea life it encounters, such as starfish and sea urchins; this is how Brinicles earned themselves a reputation as ‘Icicles of death’. A team of scientists suggests that life may have been made possible by sea ice. They argue that the formation of Brinicles may have produced the conditions necessary for the first life.
Brinicles
