The Blue Iceberg from Antarctica

from the Ray I. Doan Photographic Collection

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This picture was taken from the Ice Breaker bridge, about 90 feet above the water.
I used a hand held Nikon N90S with a 300mm AF Lens and Gold 400 film.

After photographing Emperor Penguins at the Continental Ice Shelf my voyage aboard the Ice Breaker was continuing on toward the Falkland Islands. In the Scotia Sea we happened upon this magnificent blue iceberg.

A common reaction to seeing images of this Blue Iceberg is to ask, 'Is this real?' or 'How did you make it so blue?' or 'Did you superimpose the penguins? The answers are, It's Real, the color is exactly what you would have seen had you been there and no, the penguins were not added, they were actually there.

The ice is not actually blue but rather is perfectly clear. This piece of ice was probably the bottom of a glacier where it was under tremendous pressure for a very long time. It was under so much pressure for so long that it squeezed all of the air from the ice making it perfectly clear. The ice is so clear that light can pass all the way through it so what your looking at is emitted blue light. The ice has filtered out all the colors except blue. This is the the same effect scuba divers see when diving below 60 feet and everything is blue.

The surreal shapes have been washed to form by the wave action of the constantly rough seas, but not too quickly since the water temperature is 29º F. This iceberg may also have turned over during it lifetime which would contribute to its 'out of this world' look. This iceberg was 90 to 100 feet out of the water which means it was a total of 500 to 600 feet thick. It was about a city block in size and the penguins just found it to be a convenient place to hang out.

The last time a super large blue iceberg of this scale was photographed was 25 years ago, so my blue iceberg images are really something special.

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This page was last updated: March 15, 2008