See some fascinating images of ice and learn some icy facts in this photo gallery.
Think of Antarctica, and you'll probably think of ice. It covers and surrounds the Antarctic continent and makes life difficult for the people who live and work there. But it also holds secrets about the Earth's history and environment and is an area of scientific research.
Air bubbles trapped in ice. This sliver of Antarctic ice shows hundreds of tiny trapped air bubbles. The crystals in the ice have been illuminated using polarised light. | A sliver of Antarctic ice revealing the tiny bubbles of air inside. Air bubbles trapped in ice hundreds or even thousands of years ago are providing vital information about past levels of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere. |
Pancake ice. The ocean’s water starts to freeze when the temperature reaches -1.8 ºC. As the ice crystals begin to form they rise to the surface creating an oily looking layer called grease ice. Pancake ice forms when grease ice thickens and is broken up by the water's movement. Pancakes often collide, which causes them to have upturned edges. | An iceberg off Davis Base, Antarctica. Icebergs are formed when ice breaks off the Antarctic ice sheet. Every year about two million tonnes of ice break off the ice sheet to form icebergs.
Photo by Graham Blight, CSIRO. |
Lambert glacier from space. Lambert glacier is the largest glacier in the world. It is about 40 kilometres wide and 400 kilometres long. It acts like a massive river system draining about eight per cent of Antarctica’s ice sheet into the floating Amery Ice Shelf.
Photo from NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. | This illustration shows the movement of the Lambert Glacier. Yellow represents areas of no motion. The green areas show movement of between 100 and 300 metres per year. The pink areas show the glacier moving across the Amery Ice Shelf (it moves faster then) at a speed of 1000-1200 metres per year.
Image courtesy Canadian Space Agency/NASA/Ohio State University, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Alaska SAR facility. |
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