![]() The team took more than 700,000 pictures from every angle, creating an exact 3D reconstruction of the boat. Small submersibles boats, remotely controlled by a team on board a specialist ship, spent more than 200 hours analyzing the entirety of the wreck. While the Titanic has been examined in detail since the wreck was discovered in 1985, the sheer size of the ship has meant that prior to the digital scan, cameras had only ever been able to capture the decaying wreckage in snapshots. The scan provides a three-dimensional view of the wreckage in its entirety, enabling the ship once known as "unsinkable" to be seen as if the water has been drained away. "If we could scan it, if we could capture in all its detail… we could find out how it sank and how the different parts of the boat fell apart and we can find a lot of personal stories down there as well." The scan was carried out last year by Magellan Ltd, a deep-sea mapping company, in partnership with Atlantic Productions. "I felt there was something much bigger here that we could get from the Titanic," Anthony Geffen, the CEO of Atlantic Production, told CBS News. "Anybody could have been there and captured it, so I am happy that I was the one for this one.”įor more of Cornell’s photos and video work, visit his portfolio here. “It’s like if you see a double rainbow over a whale breaching … you’re just lucky that you’re there," he says. Given the rarity of the sight, Cornell is humbled to have captured this recently flipped iceberg. But he says that it is difficult to properly estimate how often a flip happens due to the need for visual confirmation and the dangers and expense of setting up recording equipment. So you get these really thin pieces of ice that flip over right when they’ve broken off.”īurton is able to remotely record seismic signals and interpret when they're caused by large icebergs flipping. A little bit of toothpaste comes out the tube, then it breaks off, and a little bit more comes out the tube, then it breaks off. "It’s like squirting toothpaste out of a tube. But now they’re not floating, and tend to break off right at the point where the ice touches the ground," he says. “Usually these tongues of ice would extend far out into the sea and actually be floating there. According to Burton, outlet glaciers have been retreating in Antarctica and Greenland, and this contributes to iceberg flipping. Justin Burton, an assistant professor at Emory University who has studied the physics of flipping icebergs, says that the phenomenon is occurring more frequently now due to climate change. Outlet glaciers are rivers of ice that flow outward from an ice cap or ice sheet and into the sea. "When glacier ice becomes extremely dense, the ice absorbs a small amount of red light, leaving a bluish tint in the reflected light, which is what we see.” In addition, minerals and organic matter may have seeped into the underwater part of the iceberg over time, creating its vivid green-blue color. In glaciers, years of compression force out air pockets and gradually make the ice denser, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. ![]() In the case of this jewel-like iceberg, the ice is probably very old. Melting can trigger calving, but it can also change the equilibrium of an iceberg, causing it to flip. Because of the varying densities of ice and saltwater, only about 10 percent of an iceberg will ever show at the surface, and that protruding tip will gather dirt and snow. Icebergs form when chunks of freshwater ice calve-or break off-from glaciers and ice shelves, as well as other icebergs. Whereas most iceberg tips are covered in snow or have been weathered by the elements, this one was free of debris, exposing glassy, aqua-green ice with water flowing through it-“almost like an ant colony,” he says.Ĭornell’s guide suggested that the iceberg had recently flipped. “This particular iceberg at the time kind of blended in with all the crazy stuff we were seeing.”īut as they approached the mass, which rose about 30 feet out the water, Cornell understood his guide’s excitement. “Everything I was seeing was pretty exciting,” Cornell admits. ![]() While exploring Cierva Cove, a glacial bay off the peninsula, a scientist aboard Cornell's boat became excited by one iceberg in particular. “Everything is reflective and everything’s white,” recalls filmmaker Alex Cornell, who vacationed there last month with his family. “People had said that the first time you go, you’re kind of so overwhelmed that you take a lot of pictures of your feet and you don’t really know what’s going on … I definitely felt that,” he says with a laugh. Between the sun, the water and icy peaks, the beauty can be quite literally blinding. Snow-covered icebergs dominate the scene near the shore of the Antarctic Peninsula, the northernmost part of the icy south polar region. ![]()
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