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Nature is often chaotic, messy and beautifully unpredictable – but this iceberg seems to defy all that.
An object of almost geometric beauty lies in the middle of the chaotic crowd of floating ice – that's what NASA photographed last week in Antarctica, as part of a project called Operation Ice Bridge. It seems almost too perfect and straight, as if sliced with a sacred knife, but there is no magic here, and certainly no Photoshop.
Iced lines
To be considered an iceberg, an object must be at least 5 meters above sea level and have a thickness between 98 and 164 feet (30 to 50 meters). Its ice must cover at least 500 square meters (5,382 square feet). The definitions are defined in the metric system, which is why they look so much better in meters than in feet. In any case, we tend to think of icebergs as big chunks of ice, but that's not always the case. There are two types of icebergs: non-tabular and tabular. As its name suggests, the former have irregular shapes, while the latter have more regular shapes and a flat top. The particular iceberg described above is a remarkably tabular example.
Straight and geometric ridges are not uncommon in tabular icebergs, as they tend to empty along a single crack, which can be quite straight. The sharp angles and the flat surface of the iceberg indicate that it was probably recently calved from the pack ice, explains the tweet of NASA. As time goes on, its beautiful straight lines will probably begin to erode wind and water, or crack and form smaller icebergs. In addition, we do not know what the other end of the iceberg looks like, because it's not on the photo; there is a good chance it was not so simple.
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We do not know how big the iceberg is because there is no good reference on the photo. However, like all icebergs, it can be expected that 90% of its mass is under water.
However, nature is sometimes surprisingly ordered and linear – a notable example is crystallography.
Beautifully rectangular
Pyrites of perfectly cubic pyrite on marls. Image credits: Carles Millan.
There are several types of crystalline systems, based on the structure of their atomic network, which can be repeated indefinitely. In the cubic system, the crystals may appear particularly smooth and regular – almost as if they had been cut with a knife. Pyrite is a very good example and salt (halite) is another.
The above icebergs, like the pyrite crystals, are intriguingly reminiscent of the fact that nature can work in all shapes and sizes – from microscopic to planetary, from complete order to complete chaos.
For more great pictures of ice and icebergs, be sure to follow NASA ICE on Twitter.
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