Gigantic Living Sculptures Created From Ice

The world’s greatest show on earth of living sculpture is created by giant, free flowing icebergs. Merging the action of wind, wave and temperature, the ever altering display of light forms a spectacle beyond belief.

Ice, which has been shaped at the earth’s polar caps, calves from the parent lode, which is either glaciers, or ice shelves and starts its long passage towards warmer waters.

Through a blend of temperatures above freezing and the action of the wind and waves, the ice is slowly eaten away. These tremendous giants are swept along by the sea’s currents, until they drift into warmer waters and thaw, dispersing rich nutrients into the water. As the ice melts, fantastic shapes begin to appear.

Every year, in Greenland alone, approximately 40,000 medium to large sized icebergs calve, many surviving up to a year. Moving at an average of 7 kph, weighting between one – two thousands tones, the icebergs are approximately the size of 15 storey buildings. Each will travel several thousands of kilometers, before completely dispersing. Icebergs have been sighted off the Bermuda coast, as well as off Ireland, but these sightings are very rare.

To witness an iceberg doing a magnificent roll, or calving, is an unforgettable sight. It’s not only very dangerous, but intimidating, to be in a tiny boat near an enormous office block of towering ice, as well as several office blocks hidden under the water line. There is a ratio of 1/8th only, seen above the ocean. The iceberg’s instability, as well as the volume of reflections and dazzling glare formed through the interaction of ice and sun, are a real hazard.

The biggest iceberg ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere was 13km in length, 6km in width and had a freeboard (height above the water) of almost 20 meters. It was estimated to weight around 9 billion tones, or enough water for every person on the globe to drink a litre a day for 4 years.

However, icebergs in the Southern Hemisphere make their northern cousins appear as tiny anthills. In 1987 an iceberg covering an area of 6350 sq kilometers broke away from the Ross ice-shelf. It was estimated to weigh around 1.4 trillion tones and could have supplied 240 tonnes of pure drinking water.

In 1912, after the sinking of the Titanic near Newfoundland, 12 countries created the International Ice Patrol. Any ice giant over 5,400 sq feet is traced by satellite and warnings forwarded to shipping