Sunday, November 25, 2012

Photo taken by Oyvind Tangen several 100km north of Antarctica



In Antarctica icebergs aren’t always monotone white, surprisingly they can appear striped too, making for a pretty view. Different colours can indicate different conditions including where the iceberg has been. Blue stripes indicate a layer of melt water was present that very quickly refroze not allowing any bubbles to form. Brown, black and yellow stripes can show that the iceberg has picked up various types of sediments during formation, which can take hundreds of thousands of years. A green stripe can form after the iceberg has broken off and come in contact with algae rich seawater.