This Is What The Underneath of an Iceberg Looks Like

On a trip to Antarctica last December, US photographer Alex Cornell came across an incredibly rare sight in Cierva Cove - a flipped iceberg.

We hear a lot about how 90 percent of an iceberg is "below the surface", but we rarely, if ever, get a chance to see what that looks like. Until now.

In these photos, Cornell manages to capture the alien-looking underbelly of the overturned iceberg in all its blue-green majesty. 

"It looked a lot more like a parked spacecraft than a floating iceberg," Cornell wrote over at Reframe.

Although we usually think of icebergs as white, they actually get that colour from snow collecting on their surface. In reality, they're blue for the same reason that water is, because their chemical make-up absorbs light towards the red end of the spectrum and reflects the blue wavelengths back out to the world.

For comparison, Cornell recently Instagrammed this shot showing the overturned iceberg next to a regular one.

 

Here is a different angle showing the contrast between the #flippediceberg and a normal, white #iceberg. One of these is not like the other. #antarctica

A photo posted by Alex Cornell (@alexcornell) on Jan 19, 2015 at 12:33pm PST

See more of his images below, and the full series over at his website. You can also follow him on Twitter and Instagram to see more of his work.

Alex Cornell (with permission)

Alex Cornell (with permission)

Sources: Reframe, Alex Cornell