"My
favorite trips are those that are centered around a beautiful landscape — the
more dramatic or unusual the better," says Alex Cornell, a San
Francisco-based designer and musician.
So it's no
surprise that Cornell, along with his mother and sister, traveled to Antarctica
in December to take in the glorious views. While on a boat expedition to
Antarctica's Ciera Cove, Cornell got one view he wasn't expecting.
Cornell says
the trip was "filled with magnificent sightings."
He saw ice,
mountains, abandoned research outposts, beautiful open sea, and penguins.
And as his
ship approached Ciera Cove, a naturalist on board Cornell's boat began to get
excited about what he was seeing.
"We
were lucky to have the naturalist on board, who helped explain how lucky a
sighting it was, properly calibrating our excitement," Cornell says.
"At
first it looked like rock from far away — black almost, like exposed land. When
we got closer and circled it, and the gorgeous jade color was revealed, it was
clear what it was," Cornell says.
What lay
before Cornell and the boat was an iceberg that had recently flipped over,
revealing the dense blue ice that had been submerged.
"Years
of compression gradually make the ice denser over time, forcing out the tiny
air pockets between crystals. When glacier ice becomes extremely dense, the ice
absorbs a small amount of red light, leaving a bluish tint in the reflected
light, which is what we see," explains the NSIDC.
Icebergs
usually flip upside down because of melting visible ice and snow from the heat
of the sun, which changes the shape of the iceberg and creates a shift in
equilibrium.
It's not a
rare occurrence, but it made for stunning views.
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