r/NatureIsFuckingLit 8d ago Masterpiece 1

šŸ”„ Rare footage of when an iceberg flips and a Blue Iceberg is formed

74.1k Upvotes

998 comments sorted by

5.7k

u/harosene 8d ago

Why is it darker blue the deeper it goes. Thats freakin cool

5.5k

u/humble_oppossum 8d ago edited 7d ago Helpful

Copy/pasted from interweb

Blue ice occurs when snow falls on a glacier, is compressed, and becomes part of the glacier. During compression, air bubbles are squeezed out, so ice crystals enlarge. This enlargement is responsible for the ice's blue colour.

So, basically it has no air bubbles, just solid ice crystals

Edit: some updates since I've somehow become a subject matter expert after plagiarizing.wiki or something.

Blue light is also refracted (thanks to those replying)

I don't know how long this takes or how to replicate it. Maybe it's like making a diamond, pressure without crushing?

My wife just put pizza in front of me. Adios

1.9k

u/jochvent 8d ago Silver Take My Energy

right. like minecraft.

1 water, freezes = 1 ice

9 ice = 1 packed ice

9 packed ice = 1 blue ice

956

u/aweirdchicken 8d ago

hilariously, actually yes

174

u/TheLadyFate 8d ago

H! This is now my favorite existing analogy for something

72

u/PickledPlumPlot 7d ago

It's not an analogy it just is the same thing lol

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u/Fun_Bottle6088 8d ago

Not really hilarious. Minecraft does a decent job of approximating a lot of concepts

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u/Oh_please_help_me 8d ago

I don't know about you, but I think many will find a decent job of approximation of concepts pretty hilarious.

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u/H4llifax 7d ago

I still chuckle at what I overheard some physics students say once, something along the lines of "in first approximation, everything is a circle". I can't even explain what I found so funny about that, but the fact is, I did.

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u/iamabucket13 8d ago

But the color of that real ice makes me think we should get Dark Blue Ice

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u/Zeek_Seeks_Gains 8d ago

Someone bout to make a dark blue ice machine

39

u/HopooFeather 8d ago

Crazy how nature do that

53

u/jochvent 8d ago

well clearly it found its inspiration in minecraft

12

u/11173957 8d ago

Obviously nature plays a lot of Minecraft.

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u/Diazmet 8d ago

I haven’t played in years when did they add blue ice ?

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u/ErynEbnzr 7d ago

Looks like it came in the Aquatic Update (version 1.13) in 2018

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u/oKillua 7d ago

Right after the Blue Steel update with Ben Stiller

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u/Time_House_5172 7d ago

Derek Zoolander šŸ˜—

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u/kris_krangle 8d ago

OP is the reason I found out Minecraft has blue ice, lol

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u/Kaeny 8d ago

huh that makes sense. The air bubbles will scatter light due to the medium change from ice -> air -> ice.

Removing the air would make it a solid color. Water is blue

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u/bigheadasian1998 8d ago

Wait wut water is blue??

116

u/thefreshscent 8d ago

The blueness in water is not caused by the scattering of light, which is responsible for the sky being blue. Rather, water blueness comes from the water molecules absorbing the red end of the spectrum of visible light. To be even more detailed, the absorption of light in water is due to the way the atoms vibrate and absorb different wavelengths of light.

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u/ifyoulovesatan 8d ago edited 8d ago

It's also fairly rare for things to absorb red light only (and therefor appear blue) in nature. There are definitely blue things, sure, but they are often blue due to a different phenomena, which is microstructures on the surface of the thing which scatter light that isn't blue. One example is butterflies that are blue. They're not blue because they absorb light, but rather because they have very fine ridges on their wings that scatter non-blue light. Sapphires are, on the other hand, blue for the same reason water is.

You might think of blueberries as an example of something blue. And that would be fair enough, and these are indeed "blue" due to light absorption of red light. Specifically, they have a lot of so called "anthocyanins," a type of flavinoid pigment. There are many kinds of anthocyanins, and some impart a blue color while some impart red, or purple, or orange. Most blue flowers are blue because they contain anthocyanins.

However, most animals / feathers / etc are blue because of scattering.

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u/aweirdchicken 8d ago

People who think blueberries are actually blue are kidding themselves, those lil dudes are a deep purple

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u/andrewsad1 8d ago

Dun dun dun

Dun dun dundun

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u/sagerobot 8d ago

Also its what weed has that gives some strains that "purple" look.

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u/Frodolas 8d ago

Was this written by GPT

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u/ifyoulovesatan 8d ago

Nah, I wrote it. But I could totally see that, it's sort of aimless / formless and off the top of my head.

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u/crashlanding87 8d ago

It's verrrry slightly blue. That's why the ocean is blue - you're looking through enough water that you can see its colour.

Snow and clouds look white because of all the air inside them, which scatters light. Normal ice, if it's thick enough, will tint light going through it blue. Dense ice, which only forms under pressure, tints more obviously.

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u/Siberwulf 8d ago

Wrong. Blue ice is meth. Everyone that has consumed it has died, or will die.

464

u/Artiquecircle 8d ago

A Heis-berg.

624

u/Shitty_Watercolour 8d ago Masterpiece

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u/pennradio 8d ago

Nice work Shitty!

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u/ku-fan 8d ago

Haha nice one Shitty! My favorite yet!

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u/5erade 8d ago

honestly that is such a great one out of all your watercolours

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u/saythealphabet 8d ago

Waltuh put your ice away waltuh

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u/EatRatsForFiber 8d ago

My first time finding Shitty in the wild!

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u/kirthasalokin 8d ago

Awesome job Shitty. Glad to see it early. That's a fine Heisen-berg.

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u/FlipMeOverUpsidedown 8d ago

I love this one so much! Poor Jessie, can’t even ditch the ghost of Walter. The look on his face!

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u/reubenbubu 8d ago

i want a meth infused heisenburger

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u/schmittfaced 8d ago

As a 5year clean methhead who still misses it occasionally, this sounds awesome lol

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u/reubenbubu 8d ago

a healthy life is the best life keep it up

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u/agangofoldwomen 8d ago

This particular strain of meth is known as dihydrogen monoxide and you are correct - literally everyone with traces of this in their system has died.

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u/PensiveObservor 8d ago

Well, I’m not dead yet

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u/eisbaerBorealis 8d ago

traces

My body is literally over half dihydrogen monoxide. I'll die if I don't get enough... But science says I've probably got multiple decades of life left, so that's reassuring.

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u/Ok_Sir5926 7d ago

People build up a tolerance over time. I bet if you went cold turkey on DHMO right now, you'd have severe side effects.

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u/lowtack 8d ago

Not me. I don't consume chemicals. /s

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u/aleph02 8d ago

Right. Everyone has died or will die.

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u/qning 7d ago

My wife just put pizza in front of me. Adios

And just like that

Poof

He was gone

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u/hotmasalachai 8d ago

But the glacier is buried, how will snow fall on it

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u/TheWizzDK1 8d ago

Well, on the top of course

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u/hotmasalachai 8d ago edited 8d ago

Yes but the bottom is blue

Edit: Thanks for your comments. I’m just having a moment today. I’m not this slow usually lol šŸ˜…

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u/TheWizzDK1 8d ago

The bottom was once the top

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u/FlowSoSlow 8d ago

Well at least the front didn't fall off.

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u/notsostrong 8d ago

The bottom was once the top where the snow fell. Eventually it built up into a massive glacier.

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u/hotmasalachai 8d ago

Ah that makes sense. Silly of me . I’m having a slow day. Lol

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u/SSDD_P2K 8d ago

You're having a snow day

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u/hotmasalachai 8d ago

Literally!!

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u/Geikamir 8d ago

The bottom is just the top but further down.

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u/I_am_a_Failer 8d ago

Does this apply to gay relationships?

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u/King_Fluffaluff 8d ago

What happens when you add weight to something that is floating on the water? It sinks down a little bit. So as long as you keep adding weight it will keep sinking deeper while still being afloat, sometimes it flips over when the part above the water weighs less than what's beneath the water.

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u/hotmasalachai 8d ago

Thanks King. I’m just have a moment today. I’m not this slow usually lol

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u/damik 8d ago

Not to be confused with airplane blue ice.

Blue ice, in the context of aviation, is frozen sewage material that has leaked mid-flight from commercial aircraft lavatory waste systems. It is a mixture of human biowaste and liquid disinfectant that freezes at high altitude.

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u/Sparrow2go 7d ago

Adios pizzachos

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u/thoughtlow 8d ago

Blue Ice is a solid block that even though quite similar to regular ice and packed ice is much more slippery than both of them. According to the Minecraft Wiki, this block is naturally generated at the bottom of icebergs, with the majority of the time this block is distributed in the middle of the icebergs.

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u/xxDankerstein 8d ago

Lol the Minecraft wiki.

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u/quannum 8d ago

Bro just cited the Minecraft wiki for some real life shit. What a time to be alive

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u/FortyHippos 8d ago

There’s an old Tlingit sport of carving blocks of this blue ice, laying it out in a track, and paddling a crude wooden boat over the surface as a form of racing.

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u/NoMidnight5366 8d ago Helpful Wholesome

Just googled it : Glacier ice is blue because the red (long wavelengths) part of white light is absorbed by ice and the blue (short wavelengths) light is transmitted and scattered. The longer the path light travels in ice, the more blue it appears.

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u/coconut-telegraph 8d ago

Yeah, that’s why water is blue in general. In this case though the answer is compression, which is why the deeper ice pack is bluer than the surface, all the air is squeezed out.

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u/rich519 7d ago

So blue ice has more ice per ice? Got it.

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u/mikerz85 8d ago

That doesn’t explain why one side of the glacier is light blue and the other side is dark blue? They’re illuminated at the same distance, so the bluer part must be much denser ?

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u/aweirdchicken 8d ago

Correct! The bluer part has been compressed over time and is much, much denser

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u/ImAzura 7d ago

Has to do with the amount of air trapped in the ice. Blue ice is older, has gone through a lot of compression, and the air that was trapped within it has been forced out. This dense ice scatters blue light better than ice with air in it, hence the colour.

Similar phenomenon with the air in our atmosphere which is pretty good at scattering blue light.

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u/wewbull 8d ago

Water is very very slightly blue. The blue ice is extremely pure water, dense, thick and has no air in it. The air is what normally what gives ice it's white appearance.

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u/anchovo132 8d ago

gatorade powder

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u/WorldWarPee 8d ago

It's got electrolytes

4

u/sublime13 8d ago

It’s what plants crave

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u/Flat_Perspective7341 8d ago

This is awesome because it shows a real life representation of tip of the iceberg and not just a model

518

u/Lazy_Struggle4939 8d ago

"it's only a model"

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u/UFOctopus 8d ago

Shhhhhh!

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u/UAintMyFriendPalooka 8d ago

Let us not go to the iceberg. T’is a silly place.

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u/unionoftw 8d ago

We are the knights of ice berg

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u/I_C_Weaner 8d ago

Tis a silly place!

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u/g2g079 8d ago

There are plenty of videos of these things tipping. This is my favorite.

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u/Rrraou 8d ago

Open the video, see people on the iceberg ... Ahhhh f***

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u/WorldWeary1771 8d ago

Didn’t look like they were wearing life jackets either! Hope they never tried this again…

I admired the way the person filming dropped the phone to assist in the emergency!

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u/g2g079 8d ago

They survived at least.

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u/loomingmountains 8d ago

From the comments: "This is actually rare footage of an iceberg showing its defense mechanism." šŸ˜‚

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u/_ameranth_ 8d ago edited 8d ago

Well that was unexpectedly scary. I hope those two people are okay.

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u/g2g079 8d ago

Well they didn't die so that's good.

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u/Kaeny 8d ago

Ice Climbers, two of them, on a small iceberg...

Ive seen this in a game somewhere

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u/DylanCO 8d ago

What are they even doing there?

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u/Tactical_Tubgoat 8d ago

Fucking around and finding out.

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u/RetardedRedditRetort 8d ago

Your favorite is the one where you can't see it flipping and people almost die.

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u/GrowmieSome 8d ago

Why is that your favorite? There's like two frames of the iceberg flipped.

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u/particular-potatoe 8d ago

Ended too soon.

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u/PatrikPatrik 8d ago

It’s also fascinating because someone went all this way and managed to film it and didn’t have a camera that had any kind of image stabilisation that is like standard since 2018 I mean come one

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u/frontally 8d ago

Possibly zoomed in. The movements look to me like normal handshake at a high zoom level on a phone

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u/vitaminkombat 8d ago

Plus filmed in portrait. The most amateur mistake of them all.

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u/Riptide999 8d ago All-Seeing Upvote

I think this is the source. https://youtu.be/RVwLHX6lgzQ?t=60 The video OP posted is mirrored, cropped and sped up.

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u/ronzak 8d ago

Thanks. Speeding it up and cropping it removed all the sense of scale. With this version, you can see just how gigantic that thing is.

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u/ShitPostToast 8d ago

This version being slower watching the disturbance and darkening of the water to the left of the main glacier makes me think of a movie when the monster surfaces from under the water.

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u/ExternalTangents 8d ago

Yep, this version really shows the scale and the terrifying power. The amount of water moving, with some parts of the surface of the water getting sucked down and other parts roiling up is so much more impressive in this version than the OP

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u/bizmike88 7d ago

Wow, you were right. That video has major r/megalophobia vibes

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u/The_Human_Bullet 8d ago

Why the fuck would OP ruin the video like that?

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u/NotSoPsychic 8d ago

Karma whoring.

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u/shahooster 8d ago

A titanic problem around here.

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u/SinjiOnO 8d ago edited 7d ago

I didn't. Found it like this because I was curious how events like these happen after seeing this post.

But people can assume whatever they like. I know it's not personal.

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u/biznatch11 8d ago

Reddit pro tip: when you find a random video you want to post but it's shitty quality, try find the original and post that instead.

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u/Charlatangle 8d ago

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u/seffend 8d ago

Holy shit!

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u/uwanmirrondarrah 8d ago

Its so crazy, I mean literally mountains just flipping, jumping out of the water, rolling, diving.

The sound must have been otherworldly in person.

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u/Holy_Beergut 8d ago

NGL, I was expecting this to be a troll post, with the video of the Club Penguin Ice flipping. So it being an actual video was a pleasant surprise.

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u/TheHunchbackofOhio 8d ago

There was another calving event that was caught on camera. The sound of one of these things is just insane.

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u/JovialPanic389 8d ago

Wow. They should've thrown a banana down there for scale.

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u/teilzeit 8d ago

That's fantastic. Thank you!

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u/donttakecrack 8d ago

I need that classic Zelda sound added where a location has been unlocked.

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u/Chef818 8d ago

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u/HanzoShotFirst 8d ago edited 8d ago

I got an ad that was longer than the video

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u/Seaweedin 8d ago

Remember when there wasn’t ads 😭

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u/I-melted 8d ago

Christ that is a deep fjord.

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u/Lil-Trappuccino 8d ago

I love a deep fjord

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u/abegyunahboddami 8d ago

Slartibartfast won an award for making those fjords.

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u/I-melted 8d ago

He was particularly fond of all the little crinkly bits.

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u/Pudacat 8d ago

I pine for them.

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u/corgimetalthunderr 8d ago

Have you riven a fjord lately?

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u/mickdeb 8d ago

This is very much not representing a fjord depth.... It can be 300' there you just don't know

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u/rhbvkleef 8d ago

When I was sailing around Schotland, I was surprised of the depth of lochs. During our trip across the North Sea, our depth sonar could consistently easily measure depth at around 50m or less. When sailing through lochs (which is bloody beautiful), the depth sensor would often max out at 200m.

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u/ultralightbeeam 8d ago I'll Drink to That

Not nearly as cool, but the Amazon river reaches up to 100m deep. That blows my mind that rivers can be this deep. Deep water terrifies the crap out of me r/Thalassophobia

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u/ParticularYak9967 8d ago

Max depth of the Congo Rover is 722 ft/220 m

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u/Steveobiwanbenlarry1 8d ago

Well that's fucking terrifying, what the hell is at the bottom? Is it a bunch of shipwrecks, each with their own detailed stories? Could it be behemoths that evolved from marine iguanas, capybaras or glow worms? Honestly I'd rather not know.

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u/Poverty_Shoes 8d ago

Also it’s discharge is twelve times that of the Mississippi. It’s a crazy amount of water.

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u/Irlandaise11 8d ago

The Hudson River is the deepest river in the US, and not coincidentally, is also a fjord!

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u/I-melted 8d ago

I used to fish on Loch Goil. When we dropped the anchor only 10m from the steep shore it just kept going and going and going. Terrifying.

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u/rhbvkleef 8d ago

Ah yes, I do recognize that. We went for anchor in loch Hourn, and it was difficult to find a good spot due to how steep it was.

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u/souIIess 8d ago

The Norwegian Sognefjord has portions of it that reach 1300m. As a rule of thumb, the depth is about the same as the mountains to the sides, so consider that there can be an almost 3km difference between the highest peaks along the fjord and its seabed.

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u/Bavisto 8d ago

I should call her.

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u/Messter-pig 8d ago

Where the hell are penguins with jackhammers

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u/Teex22 8d ago

Getting their boogie on at the disco on other side of course

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u/desiswiftie 8d ago

I was looking for this comment šŸ˜‚

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u/TripleU07 7d ago

Just smile and wave, boys

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u/WetNutSack 8d ago

I WONDER how old is the freshwater ice at the bottom of that (deepest part)

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u/HarryTruman 8d ago

Likely a few hundred years. Glaciers like this are constantly moving downhill under their own weight.

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u/FearingPerception 8d ago

i wonder if the only water left in the world without microplastics is old ice in the middle of the berg

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u/mick_au 7d ago

Terrible realisation or possibility, but there is rainwater which I assume is plastic free, I hope. Also deep underground water is usually quite old and this means plastic free. But we are fucked as a species.

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u/GH_VEG 8d ago

I hate when these videos are clipped.

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u/slams0ne 8d ago edited 7d ago

That blue ice has gotta be the crispiest! Shout out to my r/hydrohomies

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u/xXxDr4g0n5l4y3rxXx 8d ago

Reportedly it is... Unfortunately it is also very expensive

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u/Illbsure 8d ago

That's probably some high quality h2o

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u/The_Phox 8d ago

Gaaaatorraaade

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u/anonymousxo 7d ago

"NO"

" 'No', what?"

"Mueuahhahahahaaahhhhhhhh"

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u/Lttlcheeze 8d ago

Foosball it's the debil

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u/Hahka-01 8d ago

Damn, it's better than wine tho i'm betting
I'd buy it if i had the cash lmfaaao

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u/jimi15 8d ago

Wouldn't the water be sterile though and taste like nothing?

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u/Hunt3rTh3Fight3r 8d ago

Drink blue ice! It’ll quench ya! Nothing is quenchier! It’s the quenchiest!

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u/superbuttpiss 8d ago

Ever wake up in the middle of the night super thirsty? Like all you can think about is chugging water?

I had a friend who did that and chugged the blue ice water.

He has become something else ever since

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u/slams0ne 7d ago

Sounds like a... pretty cool dude

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u/Soggy-Change 8d ago

Why does it look delicious

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u/iam_lost_bred 8d ago

Cotton candy lookin ass

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u/neuromatic 8d ago

its where they get the ā€œblueā€ flavor for all your favorite candies

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u/Schantlusch 8d ago

Is that the iceberg Aang is in?

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u/nomadic_hedgehog 8d ago

This is a chunk of glacier breaking off. It's called "calving"

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u/NotSoPsychic 8d ago

Yeah, I hate how bad this title is. For some reason, calling it rare footage also annoys me. Maybe footage of a rare event, but shits all over the internet now. It isn't rare footage anymore.

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u/shaggy237 7d ago

We can safely say it won't be rare much longer.

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u/Scooterforsale 8d ago

Not gonna lie this is so cool it gets me going. Like sexually

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u/victorz 8d ago

Feel free to not share that next time you feel it. Just... handle it.

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u/HeavyMetalTriangle 8d ago

Why couldn’t you have just lied…

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u/Scooterforsale 7d ago

Love tells no lies

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u/marsinfurs 8d ago

Thats a glacier and the ā€œblue icebergā€ isn’t formed it was already there

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u/TorrenceMightingale 8d ago edited 8d ago

Why is it so blue da ba di da ba… dye?

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u/Papaya140 8d ago

White ice is caused by air bubbles in the ice blue ice has no air bubbles because the air is squeezed out due to the immense pressure near the bottom of a glacier

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u/Admirable-Breath-654 8d ago

The dark web is emerging…

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u/_ToyStory2WasOk_ 8d ago

When I dump my slurpee into another cup so all the flavor is at the top.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

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u/G_Unit_Solider 8d ago

Why is it blue. What makes it blue

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u/OMGimFLYIN247 8d ago

That’s some Jack from Titanic blue

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u/henry_potter_legacy 8d ago

blue ice white dragon

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u/vantharion 8d ago

This is so flippin cool!

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u/mrsmambas 8d ago

Tha darker of blue the deeper it was

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u/koolaidisthestuff 8d ago

That was really pretty how it went from like white to blue like that the lower down cool stuff I don’t think I’ve seen one like this.

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u/Split0069 8d ago

Why is it blue?

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u/Grifffffffffff 8d ago

Enjoy the view while we still can.

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u/PortlandPetey 8d ago

I’m surprised that super rich people don’t pay some crazy amount of money for harvested blue ice cubes in their fancy cocktails

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