Photo: Eric Guth
Alaska’s Juneau Ice Field is the seventh largest glacial body in the western hemisphere.
28 Januari 2016 18:00
Brilio.net/en - Going deep into the heart of Mendenhall, photographer and glaciologist Eric Guth shared some pictures which are revealing hidden world of surreal blues, frozen waves and Supermans-Krypton-look-a-like caves most of us didnt know exist.
Covering a land with 3,885 square kilometers wide, Alaskas Juneau Ice Field is the seventh largest glacial body in the western hemisphere. Annual snowfalls often exceed 30 meters, and the cold, high altitude keeps most of the snow frozen during the warmer months.
1. Melting water feed a thirsty giant
Beside the ice fields most iconic and accessible feature, the Mendenhall Glacier, Guth found more secrets in the white icy land. From the Mendenhalls West Glacier Trail, a stream of melting water disappeared into the darkness, like feeding a thirsty giant.
2. Supermans Krypton
A pathway into the ice unfolded a world of surreal blue, with water rushed into it before dripped off and pooled up inside 90 meters long, 4.5 meters high and 6 meters wide glacial cave, which sometimes created a formation that looks like Supermans Krypton lair.
3. Glowing underworld
This is the cave that changed Guths life. Without anybody else with him, it was hard to get the exact size of the cave thus he have to set setting a 20-second self-timer on his tripod-mounted camera and worked hard to steadily posing through the three-second exposure.
Glowing in pale and deep blue, this stunning part of Earth keeps Guth coming year after year to continue photographing these ever changing slippery caves.
4. Frozen waves
As they may be seem similar to common eyes, a glacier cave is so importantly different from an ice cave. An ice cave is composed of solid rock: insulating walls that allow it to harbour ice year-round. A glacier cave, by contrast, is bored into solid ice via water action; like the melted water stream in this picture.
A glacier cave is much more short-lived than an ice cave, changing shape and size from time to time as melted water fluctuate.
5. Unlikely insects
During a July 2013 visit to the Mendenhall, Guth noticed something that he hadnt seen on any of his five previous trips: attached to the aquamarine walls were dozens of tiny winged insects. Each had droplets of moisture clinging to their bodies, a by-product of being in an incredibly wet environment.
6. Caribbean-blue cracks
During summer months, the surface of the Mendenhall Glacier turned into mosaic of Caribbean-blue pools of melted water mixed with blinding white, granular first-year snow called firn. The pools fluctuate enormously in size throughout the year.
Since a glacier is a body of ice moving downhill under the weight of gravity, the cracks continually open and close with the changing conditions.
7. Water windmill
Depending on the shape of the path, a melted water pool could empty out the side of a glacier, or move into the depth of ice. As the water drains, it often spirals into the ice, creating a feature called a moulin (French word for windmill). Moulins help lubricate and drive a glacier downslope; they also contribute to the shape and size of a glacier cave.
This nature phenomenon cant be seen from the surface, but you can see it by doing glacial caving deep into the ice, just like Guth did to take this shot.
8. Spelunking deep into icy world
Spelunking into the ice cave became a favourite attraction to many types of visitors to enjoy the beauty of the glacial ice it has to offer. Sometimes these visitors went further than a one-time visit. These magical world of ice had been documented in films, such as Blue Obsession and Aperture of Ice. Those two films created by Alan Gordon, the man in this picture.
