Stunning Photos of Ice 'Waves' Captured in Antarctica
Terrell Johnson Published: Dec 3, 2012, 11:27 AM EST weather.com
Amazing: Blue 'Waves' of Ice
Bringing a camera along on his trips around the world has helped make scientist Tony Travouillonsomething of a celebrity on the web in recent weeks, according to a report in London's Daily Mail.
Jaw-dropping photos of blue icebergs from his research trip to Antarctica in the early 2000s have ricocheted around social media and online forums since his visit to Dumont d'Urville, the French scientific station on the frozen South Pole continent.
Many of those who shared the photos mused that perhaps they captured a wave frozen in Antarctica's frigid temperatures just as it was about to crash onshore. But the photos show blue icebergs as they exist on the surface, which Travouillon said he stumbled upon by accident with a group of fellow scientists.
"It’s very rare that you see them in this position, where you can actually see the blue part of the iceberg completely uncovered with ice," he said in an interview with The Weather Channel. "We walked for half an hour with a team of scientists to get to them, and then we spent a lot of time basically going around it, taking pictures at every angle we could, just touching it and enjoying its beauty."
The blue color in the icebergs results from melting and re-freezing, which forces out trapped air and allows the blue color in the visible light spectrum to pass through, while blocking the red color.
"The sea ice was melting, so all the icebergs were getting un-trapped, and they were getting moved, and so you can see some of the icebergs were tipped over, revealing the bottom part," he said. "And therefore they were free of snow, and so you can see the real color of the iceberg, which is blue."
"It’s like literally looking at a large ice cube, and you can see where the cracks define the ripples in each of those waves, by the melting and the re-icing of the iceberg itself," Travouillon added. “It was a very intense color, and when you have the sun coming out, you can really see quite thickly through the iceberg, and it’s quite a view."
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Antarctic Ice Waves
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Though they appear to be frozen ocean waves, these blue ice towers in Antarctica are created when ice compresses, forcing trapped air bubbles out. When sunlight passes through this thick frozen ice, blue light waves are visible but the red light is absorbed. (Photo credit: Tony Travouillon)
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