Admire this beautifully coloured striped iceberg pictures taken taken several hundred miles north of the Antarctic.
Not all icebergs are white. Most icebergs appear white as a result of the tiny bubbles trapped within them which reflect light in every direction.
Icebergs in the Antarctic area sometimes lined with stripes. The striped iceberg photos below were taken by Norwegian sailor Oyvind Tangen from aboard a research vessel:
- around 1,700miles south of Cape Town and
- 660miles north of the Antarctic.
Amazing striped icebergs
How do the green, blue, brown colors get into these amazing striped icebergs in Antarctica?
- green stripes are created by the freezing of algae-rich Antarctic sea water. When icebergs falls into the sea, a layer of salty seawater can freeze to the underside of the iceberg. If this sea water is rich in algae, the new frozen layer will form a green stripe.
blue layers in icebergs with stripes are formed when iceberg layers melt and refreeze quickly. Blue stripes are often created when a crevice in the ice sheet fills up with meltwater and freezes so quickly that no bubbles form.- black, brown and yellow are created by sediment collected by the ice when it moves down a hillside towards the sea.
The first striped iceberg Oyvind Tangen spotted is about 150ft long and 30ft high and reminded him of a striped candy -a humbug- he bought as a child. Hence the name "humbug iceberg" was born.
