Glacial Valleys
Beautiful pastel colours of the sunset above Franz Josef Glacier photographed from Centennial Hut toward the Tasman Sea visible on a horizon. Tusk Rocks in a foreground, Chamberlin Snowfield right, Agassiz Glacier left - Westland National Park, West Coast, New Zealand
The most destructive and powerful hand of Mother Nature lies, arguably, in the cryosphere. We may not see it doing much immediate damage, but by observing the landscape we can see enormous changes in our environment caused by glaciers. One of the very typical and most visible footprints glaciers leave behind are our, often ice free, valleys. Entire mountainsides were remodeled by
Why the Glacial Ice is Blue?
One of the attractions of the glacier is the beautiful blue colour of its ice. In the upper reaches of the glacier the ice can be up to 300m thick. The upper layer is snow. When this reaches about 16 – 20m deep the snow compresses under its own weight and all the air is squeezed from between the snow crystals, forming glacial ice. (more…)
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