Rainbow iceberg in the Antarctic
Posted on 05/17/2008 4:50:28 AM PDT by yankeedame
By Laura Clout
Last Updated: 2:39AM GMT 19/03/2008
Resembling a strange creature from the deep, this rare marbled iceberg was spotted in the waters of the Antarctic by a Norwegian sailor.
Rainbow iceberg in the Antarctic
Oyvind Tangen, 62, was on board the research ship G O Sars when he photographed the unusual ice formation, floating a few miles off the coast of the frozen continent.
While most icebergs are white due to tiny bubbles trapped inside, which scatter the light in every direction, some pick up a multitude of colours due to various natural phenomena.
Green stripes are the result of algae growing in the ice, while brown, black and yellow lines form as the ice sheets from which bergs are formed pick up layers of sediment.
Article continuesadvertisement Deep blue lines can also appear when the air bubbles are squeezed out due to rapid melting and re-freezing of the ice.
cool pic
VERY cool!!
Why is the water lighter blue near the ice berg, when the sun doesn't appear to be shining at all?
I thought it was a Greenpeace submarine.
Whale *hit.
The bulk of the berg is underwater and that would be the likely cause of the blue water.
Very cool! I wish we had a better idea of how big it is?
Caused by global warming?
Bush’s fault.
Now they’re detailing icebergs?!?!
Or does each stripe signify a kill, and this is the iceberg that got the Titanic?
GLOBAL WARMING!!! GLOBAL WARMING!!! WE’RE THROWING TOO MANY EMISSIONS INTO THE ATMOSPHERE!!! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!
AND ALL THOSE POOR WIDDLE POLAR BEARS!!!
worried about doing a Titanic, :)
In other words, the individual stripes were each deposited separately as horizontally layered sheets atop the ice while this berg was still attached to the much larger land mass from which it broke off and drifted out to sea. Each layer would then represent a different period of time. In this regard, it's very similar to layered sedimentary rock formations we see along highway road cuts, only they have broken off from their original source and floated out to sea. There are, however, isolated boulders known as 'glacial erratics' that have been transported vast distances by advancing ice sheets (over land). In fact, there are quite a few of these objects in the heart of Manhattan--in New York's Central Park. Some of the familiar boulders, however, are just large chunks left over from blasting done when they excavated underpasses to make roadways. Glacial erratics are often more rounded due to the abrasion that occurred during their long transport inside or at the base of the advancing ice. The blasted boulders are typically more jagged.
Finally, some of the true glacial erratics in Central Park originated from the Palisades of neighboring New Jersey. The rocks of the Palisades were once molten lava injected deep underground between pre-existing sedimentary rock layers. This happened as a great super-continent (Pangaea) was just beginning to split apart to form the Atlantic Ocean (~200 million yrs ago). Dinosaurs still existed at this time. OK, I know! Enough already. (don't ever get me started talking about rocks and earth history!)
Re-unite Gondwanaland!!
No... It’s just real pretty and I would like to have a better idea of the scale. Is it 30 feet or 1000 feet across? Are the color bands a couple of inches thick or a couple of feet thick?
You've got some fantastic geology right there in Tennessee, Bob. I have lots of relatives around Knoxville and the Smokies. A large portion of the Smokies (also the Blue Ridge) formed over a billion years ago when a super-continent even older than Pangaea existed. Gondwanaland was the once separate southern portion of Pangaea. When it crashed into North America around 250 million years ago, it connected Africa to the now east coast of North America (we've since rotated about 90 degrees and moved northward from a position SOUTH of the equator--we've got 400-million yr old tropical marine fossils in the Catskill Mts).
sorry poor attempt at humor.
Yes it is pretty
I had a dress that was striped like that back in the ‘70s.
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