Brine pools do not combine with surrounding water, offering the look of an underwater beach.University of MiamiMore than 1,700 meters listed below the surface area of the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea lies something uncommon and amazing: a brine swimming pool. These pools, which do not combine with the water around them, are hyper-salty, entirely do not have oxygen, and serve as a time capsule for the geological functions that existed when they formed, which might offer ideas to how our oceans initially formed. Researchers revealed the discovery of these ethereal, Red Sea pools last month in a research study that appeared in Nature Communications.As unwelcoming as the brine pools might be to many creatures, there are extremophile microbes that are able to call these creepy habitats house. Studying these organisms could help reframe our thinking about how life could exist on other worlds, as the presence of water (and, thus, oxygen) is considered as one of the many fundamental requirements for life.
