What are the “blood red waterfalls” of the island of Hormuz in Iran due to? The video of the phenomenon

Red beaches And “Blood red waterfalls” in the’Homruz island in Iran: for a few days the videos of the phenomenon that is anything but unusual for this desert island in the Persian Gulf It is also found in Antarctica. But what exactly is it about? Hormuz (in ancient times known as Ormus) is an island of about 42 km² belonging to the Iranian province of Hormozgan, famous for the presence of shades beaches ruby red due to the abundance of iron oxides In its beaches: what we observe in the video are the rainfall that dilated these materials thus going to color the rainwater that creates temporary “red waterfalls” that end up at sea. This color, which attracts tourists every year and tinges the waters of the surrounding sea, is due to geological reasons and the composition of the rocks and sand present on this island.

The island of Hormuz, which has about 600 million years of age but emerged from the water “only” 50,000 years ago, from a geological point of view it is a formation called salinethat is, a “dome” of ancient deposits of sedimentary rocks inside which there is a nucleus of salgemma (sea ​​salt) Raised on the surface from the depths of the subsoil thanks to the fact that the salt is less dense than the surrounding rocks and therefore tends to emerge a bit like the oil on the water. This process, which took place over the age of millions of years, gave birth to the characteristic rock formations of the island by re -emerging the materials that make them up including the iron oxides which play a fundamental role in the formation of red beaches and “blood red waterfalls”.

The iron oxides These are the elements that give the island the unmistakable red earth. When the rain It mixes with the ground, the water takes on intense shades, creating the illusion of a “blood river” that flows into the landscape.

A phenomenon similar to that of the Iranian island also occurs in Antarcticain the “Blood Falls”, where the water rich in iron oxides flows from a glacier, creating a unique visual effect.

The iron oxides are also the recovery of the reddish color of Mars – the red planet, in fact – due to the oxidation of the iron present in the regolite that surrounds the planet.

This feature of the island has been known since ancient times: the reddish ocher of the island and its beaches, called Golak by the locals, it is used as a pigment for textile and cosmetic industry, but also as food coloring or even like spice for traditional recipes. A study analyzed the levels of heavy metals in the ground, discovering that iron represents the greatest risk for health than other metals. Although the overall risk of toxicity is low, it would be optimal to reduce the presence of heavy metals in the red earth, given its growing use in the food sector.