BS: Alaska Blue

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 07:05 PM

Pure ice, Jim Dixon, I would suppose, is an impossibility. Density increases, as near as I can make out, when less air is trapped inside. Glacier ice is and has been under tremendous pressure. The ice cubes you routinely find in your freezer tray does not have the same history.

I would think that proposing 10% more dense would be ludicrous. Surely a fraction of greater density would be significant.

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 07:03 PM

Puts the ol' squeeze on dissolved gases and stuff, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 06:39 PM

See, glaciers sucks freon from the air and converts it to ce, therefore it is not water a glacier is composed of. :)


·Density is the ratio of the mass of an object to its volume. Snow has a density averaging about 0.1, firn has a density greater than 0.55, and glacier ice has a density of about 0.89. The density of unmineralized fresh water is 1.
·Glaciologists measure snowpack density frequently so that they may anticipate future water supplies, and to assess avalanche hazards. The density of a fresh snowpack is about 0.1; firn has a density of about 0.55 and glacier ice, of about 0.89. Each annual snow layer has a characteristic grain size and density

Another Site

"The density of ice Ih is 0.931 gm/cubic cm. This compares with a density of 1.00 gm/cubic cm. for water. There are eleven different forms of crystalline ice that are know. The hexaganol [sic] form known as ice Ih is the only one that is found naturally."


And another

- glacier ice - bluish in colour and containing little air - this may take 40-50 years, depending on the location - see below - and has a density of 0.8-0.9 - water has a density of 1.

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 02:54 PM

I don't see how one kind of pure ice can be denser than another--unless, of course, it's not pure.

Impurities, such as salt, might make ice denser, but I think they would also lower the freezing/melting point, so the ice would melt faster.

If ice were even 10% denser than it is, it would sink! (In fresh water, anyway; the percentage would be higher for salt water, but I don't know how much.)

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 10:24 AM

My firxt summer in Alaska, Rap, I worked in a wilderness lodge. Our food was kept cold in freezers by huge ice chunks. Each week we took out the boat and collected small icebergs floating in the water that had broken off the glaciers to refill the freezers. And each week the main table centerpiece was a glimmering light-catching chunk displayed in a large pan.

And we used ice chipped off the chunks for the drinks.

The ice was really, really dense, it didn't melt the way that refrigerator ice does.

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 09:15 AM

Think of the drinks it would cool!

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 06:44 AM

Wow! That looks really cold.

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 11:01 PM

I prefer them simpler, Jim Dixon, although I realize there are many variations of glaciers' appearance. Here is one from NOAA in Alaska:

A Paler Shade of Blue

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 10:33 PM

Photos of icebergs from Australian Antarctic Division.

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 08:20 PM

I thought it was about seasonal depression.

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 07:50 PM

Are we talking about Sarah Palin Ale?

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: gnu
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 01:36 PM

Ebbie.... I saw two ravens today. In town.

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 01:25 PM

Oh, that's right. Gotta have that.

Friends have taken me to the Alaskan Brewery several times lately and I've tasted a number of other formulations. Amber is still far and away my favorite.

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 12:49 PM

Alaskan Amber?

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 12:46 PM

If/when you come to Alaska, take a helicopter jaunt if you can. You land on a glacier or two- everyone is issued a certain kind of bunny boot so you have good traction - and you can walk around peering into these pools of blue.

It's not something you easily forget.

And of course, as Rap says, you can see the blue in freshly 'cut' surfaces of glaciers.

However, Crater Lake in the Cascade range in southernish Oregon has almost the same blue. The first time I saw it, I just capered and hollered. I had always seen pictures of it but I think I thought that the color was lens-enhanced.

Glacier blue is more delicate than Crater Lake blue, actually. Glacier blue has almost a silver tinge to it.

Music and Glacier blue and Northern Lights- who can ask for anything more!

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 12:36 PM

I have some somewhere I took in Alaska on the Mendenhall Glacier.

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: gnu
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 12:33 PM

I know what you mean SINS. Beautiful.

I lost a bunch of pics of icebergs in Labrador. One, in particular, was amazing. It was a small berg in Makkovik harbour that looked like a toadstool, albeit about 80 feet in height above water. The sun was shining at an angle that penetrated the water and reflected off the large ice mass under the water to the underside of the "toadstool". The rippling water... I'll stop there because no words can describe it.

I do have a few descritive words about losing those pics. From Goose Bay to Nain by chopper - gone. From Nain to Makkovik to Davis Inlet to Rigolet, and some small towns, >;-)... gone. Can't even find the negatives. I got lots of pics on following trips, but none like the ones I lost.

Hope you can get some pics, SINS, even if they don't "do justice." If you do, I would love to see them.

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 12:28 PM

Well, there's Alaska Amber so I thought this was about a new beer.

Subject: RE: BS: Alaska Blue
From: Alice
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 12:20 PM

Oh, I thought this was a thread about how Alaska has suddenly turned Democratic!

Subject: BS: Alaska Blue
From: SINSULL
Date: 23 Feb 09 - 11:54 AM

Any of you who have been out on a glacier or seen icebergs at sea will know the color I am talking about. The ice is so dense it reflects back this incredibly beautiful shade of deep blue green. I had never seen the color before and a camera just doesn't capture it.

Well, today you can see it in Maine. Amid all the mess of last night's snow I have found spots of deep blue in the piles of ice. It is beautiful.

Fellow Mainiacs - don't miss it.