Apr 08 2008
The colored iceberg – the beauty of the Antarctic
In March I published a post about a marbled iceberg. I could never imagine the attention these pictures got. Since then the pictures of this beautiful iceberg has been published in newspapers and shown on news channels all over the world. Daily Telegraph described it as a “Rainbow iceberg”, while Daily Mail compared it to a “giant humbug”.
Some days ago I received an email from a scientist participating on the same survey in the Antarctic Ocean. He gave me the right to publish his pictures of the same iceberg, and here are some of them!
Leif Nøttestad took 14 pictures of the iceberg as the research vessel passed it. This gives us the opportunity to study the iceberg from different angles.
Here we can see the top of the iceberg. The next picture was taken as the vessel (”G.O.Sars”) was sailing away from the iceberg.
One of the comments to the first post about this iceberg said that “The way those lines come together remind me of the lines on an agate”. I have to agree. Agate iceberg is an adequate name of such an iceberg.
There are no closeups of this iceberg, but by zooming in and cropping one of the original image files from Leif Nøttestad we can get an idea of what it looks like on short range.
When the Norwegian scientists saw this iceberg passing, one of them said: This must be the beauty of the Antarctic! All photos: Leif Nøttestad.
That is so beautiful.
Before you started posting these pictures, I never would have imagined the sheer beauty of an iceberg.
These photos are great. Too bad you do not have an email link on the post. I would have love to forward the link to some people via email.
Great pics!! I’ll have to share with my hubby as he would definitely appreciate them.
My goodness, that marbled iceberg is just amazingly beautiful! I had no idea such things existed, thank you so much for posting these photos. And I agree that “agate iceberg” is a much better name.
These are the coolest pictures ever! Thank You!
Thanks for all the nice comments. I’ll let the photographer know.
Nature at its finest, it really is beautiful.
And just think, if it weren’t for me causing global warming in my SUV, you’d have never seen it…
Wow…I’ve never seen anything like that before. Great pics!
Great pics, it’s really beautyful
sometimes nature produces truly amazing things
Very beautiful!!
Fantastic,its nearly unbelievable.
That is truly amazing. Do they know how the lines are formed?
awesome collection of images… a thumbs up in stumbleupon!
Great images. I have to wonder about the cause of the marbled effect. Have icebergs like this appeared before? Is the appearance sign of global warming?
I too want to know more about what caused such beauty, and the timeframe it took to create this amazing item.
Not a single person has given God the glory and the credit for creating the elements required and bringing them together to make this wonder.
“# Jimon 24 Apr 2008 at 3:38 pm
Not a single person has given God the glory and the credit for creating the elements required and bringing them together to make this wonder.”
No wonder….it was man that made the pollution that was the likely cause of those ‘lovely colours’.. …
Wow, is that for real? It’s absolutely beautiful. I never imagined an ice berg could even have any other color besides white
Incredible I would say.
Damn, beautiful pictures. Thanks for posting them. And thanks to the scientists for sharing them.
Who knew?
Unreal… that is so beautiful!
I assume that the various layers are colored by the snowfall of a particular year. If this is correct, I wonder what years those colored layers represent. Particularly the wide dark one on the right. Possibly when a volcanic cloud produced the “Year without a summer”, I don’t remember the date except that it was in the early 1800’s. The “ice core” scientists would be intersted in this berg.
Wow, beautiful. I’m surprised no one has accused this of being photoshopped.. Thank God! I hate when people do that.
Oh wow that’s nuts. I’ve never seen anything like it…
Looks photoshopped to me…
that’s insane!
Is that for real? Was this photoshop?
While I realize that a ‘humbug’ is a nice chewy sweet in the UK, I choose to believe that the Daily Mail was calling this thing a big, fat fraud (ie. “humbug” referring to a fraud or impostor, implying an element of unjustified publicity and spectacle.)
Thanks for all the comments.
Yes Jordan! The article in Daily Mail is referring to a sweet in UK! And to Marisa: This is not Photoshop – it is nature!
I would like to know if there is a place a person could read about the theories on the cause of the marbling?
This ice berg is COOL
Fantastic!!!!! Is there a way that it could be preserved and studied??????????????????
its photoshopped and God did it
…. creo que la naturaleza nunca nos dejará de impresionar. Gracias por regalarnos estas magnificas e impresionantes imágenes.
That’s amazing!
The “dark” ring is clear or Blue..formation called “blue ice” — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ice_(glacial), is formed when snow falls on a glacier and during it’s migration to the bottom of the glacier the pressure forces the air bubbles out of it, producing clear ice or “blue ice”.
Amazing! The colours are absolutely beautiful!
I have several iceberg pictures that we took on a cruise to Alaska a couple of years ago. We thought “the blue ice ” was spectacular. I have to tell you the rainbow iceberg, is nothing short of amazing. Thank you for sharing these.
“Icebergs in the Antarctic area sometimes have stripes, formed by layers of snow that react to different conditions.
Blue stripes are often created when a crevice in the ice sheet fills up with meltwater and freezes so quickly that no bubbles form.
When an iceberg falls into the sea, a layer of salty seawater can freeze to the underside. If this is rich in algae, it can form a green stripe.
Brown, black and yellow lines are caused by sediment, picked up when the ice sheet grinds downhill towards the sea.”
http://www.dailycognition.com/index.php/2008/08/11/amazing-pictures-of-color-striped-icebergs-in-antarctic.html
Hello,
These pictures are beautiful!!
I’m a student at the school of arts in Utrecht I study fashion design. These pictures have inspired me so much and I was wondering if I’m allowed to use one of the pictures. Or is there copyright on it? You would really help me out!
Looking forward to hear from you.
Yes there is a copyright on it but on behalf of the photographer I can give you permission to use it as long as it is a part of your school work (and not commercial use).
Regards
Magnus Tangen
this is freakin awsome man everyone stop this global warming thing and save these iceburgs