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Claim: Photographs show icebergs with multi-colored striping.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, April 2008] Origins: These striking pictures of icebergs with multi-colored stripes or banding were taken by a Norwegian sailor named Oyvind Tangen while he was aboard a research ship about As the London Times reported of the processes that created the striations displayed in these unusual candy-striped icebergs:
Keith Makinson, of the British Antarctic Survey, said that icebergs that seemed to show stripes were quite common in southern waters, but it was the first time that he had seen brown stripes. They are believed to be created when ice crystals form under the water and, in a process described as "inverted snow", rise to stick to the bottom of the ice shelf. As the ice crystals form a new layer at the bottom of the ice shelf, which later fragments to float away as icebergs, tiny particles of organic matter are trapped.
Photographs of similarly-patterned icebergs can be viewed at the Parts of dead marine creatures such as krill form much of the trapped material and have the effect of creating coloured stripes, mainly blues and greens, in icebergs. Last updated: 8 May 2008 Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2008 by snopes.com. This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com. Sources:
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