Margerie Glacier, Alaska

[Douglas Sherman]

I thought I would change things up a little and post something different from my Alaska trip last year. This is one edge of the Margerie Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska. Those dark lines you see are from debris that accumulates on the surface of the ice each summer when the surface snow melts.

 

[Kyle Jones]

Really nice - I like the layers of water, ice and then green in the background.

 

[AlanLichty]

The aqua shade for the water is a really neat foreground for the ice. The wavy lines of the summer dirt add a note of serendipity to the scene.

 

[Leslie Hunter]

Wow, very nice.

 

[JimFox]

Hey Doug, very cool. I like that glacier stripes. I think the upper right corner looks too blue compared to the cyan next to it.

 

[Tom Narwid]

I thought I would change things up a little and post something different from my Alaska trip last year. This is one edge of the Margerie Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska. Those dark lines you see are from debris that accumulates on the surface of the ice each summer when the surface snow melts.

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Nice image Doug. Any idea re the dark bands. Is it dust...volcanic or otherwise?

 

[Douglas Sherman]

Nice image Coug. Any idea re the dark bands. Is it dust...volcanic or otherwise?

The debris that forms on top of the ice can be from a number of sources. Sometimes debris slides down the steep sides of the valley onto the glacier and it can also be dust and volcanic ash as you suggested. As you can see, many of he layers appear thicker than they really are because of melting along the front of the glacier so that debris runs down the face from the layer above.

 

[Douglas Sherman]

Thank you Tom, Jim, Leslie, Kyle, and Alan for your comments. I think the light scattered by the glacial ice casts a different blue than the haze in the distance, Jim. To give you an idea of how blue the ice can get, here is an image of Hubbard Glacier with an overcast sky. You can also see a lot of debris on the surface of the glacier. There is even more debris on top of the pacific glacier below that. Yes there is a glacier underneath all of that rock debris.

 

[AlanLichty]

That last one sure answers the question of where those bands come from.

 

[Zeph]

Thanks for the show I appreciate learning about glaciers.