Violent beauty at the end of an Alaskan glacier

Flora Graham, deputy editor, newscientist.com

(Image: Jon Cornforth/Caters)

You can almost hear the crash of ice on water in this image of an ice sheet shearing off the Chenega glacier in Prince William Sound, Alaska. But when photographer Jon Cornforth pressed the shutter, it was eerily silent.

"I saw the birds erupt in flight before I even saw the ice falling," says Cornforth. "I heard the actual sound a moment later."

The process whereby huge chunks of ice break away from a glacier into the sea is called calving, and as these birds could tell us, it's an impressive event. Huge waves created by falling ice can endanger nearby ships, and the calves themselves may become roaming icebergs.

In the Antarctic, massive icebergs can do far more than frighten the birds. In 2010, a 860-billion-tonne berg threatened marine life and global ocean currents. Five years earlier, the biggest berg ever seen wallowed in the southern seas, cutting off supplies to penguins and Antarctic research bases.

When calving gets out of hand, it can drain glaciers and release water locked up in ice sheets. A time-lapse video of a glacier in Greenland revealed this process in action.

For more cold, hard facts, read our feature on the end of the last great ice age.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/26932529/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A120C120Calaskan0Eglacier0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

chris brown and rihanna nightline brady quinn brady quinn bloom box fat tuesday obama sweet home chicago