Wednesday 9 February 2011

Open thread - Wednesday

Our dear Mrs Gunka sent me some pictures by e-mail and this one stood out. There's an explanation for the peculiar appearance of this chunk of ice:

Icebergs in Lake Michigan sometimes have stripes, formed by layers of snow that react to different conditions.

Brown, black and yellow lines are caused by sediment, picked up when the ice sheet grinds downhill towards the lake.

The picture is very pretty, the iceberg resembles a sweet, asking to be licked like a piece of Blackpool rock!

Blackpool rock

UPDATE

Alert readers found out that this iceberg was not from Lake Michigan, but from Antarctica! mrsgunka's e-mail was one of those making the rounds on the internet, forwarded on and on, embellished and tweaked along the way, until the the facts behind the pictures become somewhat muddled.

No worries, the iceberg is still very beautiful and unusual...

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