Off To The Antarctic

Posted by Gunnar on Feb 16, 2014 in Behind the Lens | 4 comments

One week from today I depart Santa Fe for Miami, Buenos Aries and then Ushuaia at the very southern tip of Argentina to board a cruise ship for two weeks to the South Shetland Islands and on to the Antarctic Peninsula.

All in search of blue ice! A year and a half ago on my first trip to Alaska, I was fascinated by glimpses of blue ice glaciers, but it was not nearly as dramatic as I had expected.

Since the Antarctic Continent is covered with an average of 5,000’ of ice – nearly 70% of the entire earth’s fresh water – I am looking forward to massive cliffs of solid ice. Over time as the ice build-up has increased, its compression has squeezed out the air bubbles, which in turn increases the size of ice crystals, thus making the ice clear:

As with water, the blue is caused by the absorption of both red and yellow light, which leaves only light at the blue end of the visible light spectrum.