Icebergs of Chile
(November, 1988 visit)
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You Tube "Chile-Antarctica 1988" slide show at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DvkRJ4H81E

You Tube "Chile-Antarctic Voyage" slide show at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOEIY8fJZP4  
 
 
 
Icebergs can be seen in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern Chile.  They are usually the result of calving glaciers or ice flows and are therefore made of fresh (non-salt) water.  This is in contrast to sea ice, which is frozen salt or seawater.  Icebergs can be brilliant white, blue, green or turquoise in color.  It is not uncommon to see black or brown components caused by the glacier gauging through rock and soil. Their unusual shapes are caused by weathering effects - erosion by waves, wind and melting.  Scattering of light in the glacial ice produces the blue and green hues.  After the sunlight is scattered by enough crystals, most all of the red light is removed, leaving only blue light. After more scattering, the blue light turns to dark blue, and the deeper the ice the deeper the blue becomes.  Snow and ice crystals reflect panchromatically giving a white appearance.  Though the core of an iceberg may be composed of very clean ice, the surface of an old berg can be rather grimy.  While it's the tip of the iceberg that we see, most of the berg itself is submerged. Usually, only about 1/8 of the mass of an iceberg is above the surface of the water. However, this doesn't mean that the submerged portion is 7 times deeper then the height of the above-water ice. If the visible part of an iceberg is 100-ft high (31 m), the submerged part may extend 125 feet (38 m) beneath the water. The point is, ice is slightly less dense than water (92% of the density of water), so it floats with most of its mass below the surface.  Car or house-sized icebergs are sometimes called "growlers", while the smallest
icebergs are known as "bergy bits".

 
The photos below were all from Parque Nacional Laguna San Rafael and have their origin in the San Rafael Glacier located in the Asien region of southern Chile between Chiloe Island and Torres del Paine.  This glacier-filled, 4.2 million acre park in Pacific coastal Patagonia encompassing some of the most spectacular fjords, mountain scenery and icebergs in Chile.


Icebergs of Chile Photos
(Laguna San Rafael)

Please mouse click on any of the thumbnail photos below to see an enlargement