Today the Department of Awesome Natural Wonders is marveling at this stunning striped iceberg that was photographed off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada by Redditor carriehunt.
Fellow Redditor CookingWithoutWater offered an explanation for how an iceberg like this is formed:
The white like color is due to entrapped air bubbles and impurities. Since glaciers form by the accumulation of snow, which gets compressed over time, there are many air pockets that get trapped in the firn (old snow). Once the firn reaches a high enough density, the air pockets are no longer interconnected (called the pore close-off depth), and the remaining trapped air gets compressed into bubbles. The deeper you go, the smaller these bubbles get and the clearer the ice becomes. A clear blue iceburg indicates old basal ice.
Once calved, icebergs exposed to air will melt, and ice crystals (crystallites or grains technically) preferentially melt along their grain boundaries. the air bubbles will also explosively decompress, both of which lead to the milky blue-white clear color seen in some icebergs as more and more grain boundaries and void spaces are able to refract the light. The portions of the ice burg underwater tends to stay the clear color because of how much more efficient melt is in the water. So when they roll over, you’ll typically see the brilliant clear blue again.
However, clear blue color layered into white ice like this indicates that the blue ice is water that has refrozen into the glacier – typically a crevasse that became filled with water which then froze, or less likely, an ice lens. This happens at the top of the glacier and the surrounding glacial ice will be the less dense white kind because it hasn’t yet been compressed enough to become clear.
To learn more about the science behind this beautiful sight, check out the comments beneath the original Reddit post.
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