Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Beautiful Blue Ice

Annette and Jon were touring in Torres Del Paine National Park in Chile, Southern Patagonia when they found an amazing site. A Blue Ice glacier.Here's the story in their own words: "When viewing the terminal face of a glacier, typically you only see 10% of the glacier on the surface. Calving, a natural occurrence where the glacier loses ice from its' terminus, results in large free-floating chunks of ice. This particular ice had broken off from the glacier the evening before from underwater / lower portion of the glacier.

"Witnesses heard a cracking and a loud "boom," and then the ice surfaced. We understand ice this large breaks off from under the glacier approximately once a year and we were fortunate to be able to photograph it. The ice is a very deep blue as it is deprived of oxygen. Within 24 hours it will be white as the typical floating ice pieces."

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