Stunningly beautiful.
I made a note to write about Iceland’s ice caves a few weeks ago. For I don’t know about you but previously I had never heard of them.
The Amusing Planet website offers details of these caves:
Ice caves are temporary structures that appear at the edge of glaciers. They look amazingly beautiful from the inside. This particular cave is located on the frozen lagoon of the Svínafellsjökull glacier in Skaftafell, Iceland. The centuries old ice coming down the slopes of Öræfajökull via Svínafellsjökull glacier has metamorphosed into highly pressurized glacier ice that contains almost no air bubbles. The lack of air means that it absorbs almost all visible light, apart from the blue fraction which is then visible to the naked eye. However, this blue ice can be seen only under certain circumstances. It can be seen in winter after long periods of rain when the surface layer of the glacier has been washed away. It can be seen in ice-caves like this one and on floating icebergs that have recently rolled over.
This cave in the glacier ice is the result of glacial mill, or Moulin where rain and melt water on the glacier surface are channeled into streams that enter the glacier at crevices. The waterfall melts a hole into the glacier while the ponded water drains towards lower elevations by forming long ice caves with an outlet at the terminus of the glacier. The fine grained sediments in the water along with wind blown sediments cause the frozen meltwater stream to appear in a muddy colour while the top of the cave exhibits the deep blue colour. Due to the fast movement of the glacier of about 1 m per day over uneven terrain, this ice cave cracked up at its end into a deep vertical crevice, called cerrac. This causes the indirect daylight to enter the ice cave from both ends resulting in homogeneous lighting of the ice tunnel.
There are many beautiful photographs available if you conduct a web search. Here are some examples.
Seen originally here.
This one above was originally seen here.
And my final photograph is taken from here, together with the opening paragraphs.
Fortress Of Solitude: Unbelievable Crystal Ice Caves In Iceland
I want one!
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That’s cool! (Sorry, couldn’t resist that!)
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LOL, nicely played!
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Really beautiful! I’m not sure how comfortable I’d feel walking in the one that appears to be surrounded by water!
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I’m sure you are not alone with that concern. But I’m also sure that the dazzling surroundings would nullify any worries. I could only dream of what it would be like inside such a cave.
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Spectacular is our wonderful Earth dear Paul and these photo shares are a delight to walk into this evening as I endeavour to catch up a little with your good self 🙂
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And, as always, your catch-ups are my pleasure.
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Your photos are lovely, however, one of these is not an Ice Cave in Iceland. Your second one is a marble cave in Patagonia, Chile. From what I have read, the color of the caves, which range from grey to greenish to blue, come from the amount of blue reflected from the water, which depends on the time of year and weather. I’m afraid your original source posted an incorrect picture.
That being said, the photos are are spectacular.
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Welcome to this place! And thank you for that correction. Hope to see you again soon!
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