Reflections on an Icelandic Glacier
The Weight of Blue
About 5 hours out of Reykjavík, at the edge of Vatnajökull National Park, the Breiðamerkurjökull Glacier flows out from Iceland’s largest ice cap, curling down through a mountain pass, once extending its icy face far enough to kiss the sea.
These days, the glacier has receded by several miles, leaving behind one of Iceland’s most famous natural wonders: the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon. It covers almost 10 square miles and, at nearly 1,000 feet deep, is Iceland’s deepest lake.
Regularly, ice chunks ranging in size from small houses to fine gravel tip or slip or cascade from the glacier face and crash into the meltwater lagoon below. Now icebergs made of centuries-old ice, the bigger pieces glide regally away from the glacier, slowly making their hero’s journey across the lagoon toward open ocean. Eventually, they yield to gravity and water, return to liquid, and disappear.
These images—taken from a small rubber boat—depict just one day in their story.
Click each image to see it full-size.
The glacier face rises almost 100 feet above
the water’s surface and, at almost 8 miles wide, extends far beyond the segment shown here.
Iceland is known as the land of fire and ice and, even in its ice, there is evidence of fire.
The glacier surface is heavily slicked with black volcanic ash, dust, and rock—the residue of countless fiery eruptions.
Black scars plunge through blue-tinged ice at every angle. Like chaotic tree rings, they give some sense of the long and volatile life of this glacier.
Always, as cracks and fissures and crevasses develop, a mesmerizing blue shines forth.
Cracks are where the light gets in,
says the melancholy songwriter.
But what if our cracks
are also where our essence light shines out?
Faces of an iceberg that have been underwater
take on a glowing blue hue as the water
strips snow and debris, revealing crystalline ice.
Most of us are fascinated by the intoxicating blue of glaciers and icebergs. What could be in there to make that color? It turns out that the blue glow doesn’t stem from something in the ice but from something not in the ice: Air.
When snow falls, countless tiny air pockets between the flakes reflect all wavelengths of the light shining on them, making snow look white. But over time, with repeated snowfall and refreezing, newer layers compress what’s buried beneath, driving out air bubbles and forcing pure ice crystals to form, merge, and grow.
The result might take centuries. But eventually, longer light waves—like red, orange, and yellow—can penetrate deep into the dense crystalline ice and be absorbed. The shorter wavelengths—like blue—stay nearer the surface and bounce back out to our eyes.
It takes tremendous pressure to turn
glacier ice blue. The pressures in my life:
Have they in some way molded and
refined me for the better? Mostly, yes.
Sunshine isn’t always a photographer’s friend.
A cloudy day saturates colors, revealing the beauty of blue even in younger, snowier glacier ice.
Like fizz in soda pop, microscopic air pockets give younger glacier ice a bubbly, frosted appearance and colors ranging from white to turquoise to almost blue-black.
Add the fissures and veins of volcanic debris, and you get something akin to a collection of abstract paintings everywhere you look.
Too focused on chasing crystal clear blue ice, it’s easy to miss what appears right in front of me. How fulfilling to slow down and see the unlooked-for beauty offered to me in each precious moment.
In the oldest, most highly compressed glacial ice, scientists have found individual ice crystals
more than 7 inches long.
One quality that makes icebergs seem magical in addition to gorgeous is the sculpted surface pattern that develops under water. Scientists say that tiny microclimates help drive this process: As churning water clears an air bubble or small rock, for instance, it leaves a tiny pit that the oscillating water continues to erode, scooping out an ever deeper contour.
Now imagine that happening all over the underside of the iceberg and you can see why and how a widespread undulating surface might happen.
When the iceberg flips over, as most eventually do, the sculpted, polished underwater surface comes into the light.
Even our human evolution doesn’t happen evenly across our surfaces. But if we’re lucky, our imperfections and hard edges soften over time.
This stunning striated iceberg—many times bigger than our 12-person boat—is beginning to thaw
and soften, and will likely disintegrate soon.
Prominent bands of black volcanic debris, like those seen here, can help speed an iceberg’s destruction by warming it in the sun.
Only about 2% of Earth’s water is stored in glaciers and ice caps. But if they all melted at once, our sea levels would rise by more than 200 feet.
Though glaciers and ice caps hold only 2% of
Earth’s water, they hold 97% of our fresh water.