The opening makes the iceberg look almost like a gateway. Different camera angles reveal how much ice surrounds that gap, and why a graceful outline can hide an enormous amount of material.
An arch in moving ice
The archive account concerns Wanda and Rick Stead observing an iceberg in Newfoundland’s Bay of Exploits. It describes the arch collapsing while they were nearby in a boat. The original linked video is unavailable; the accompanying photographs show the iceberg’s arch.
A wave produced by falling or overturning ice is not a tidal wave: tides are a different process. The photographs also cannot establish a reliable clearance distance from the iceberg by themselves.
Appreciate the form without treating it as permanent
An ice arch is a temporary arrangement, not a structure built to remain standing. Compare the shapes in Martin Bailey’s Antarctic iceberg photographs, where light reveals other openings and edges. For another moving-ice environment, explore Mendenhall’s glacier-cave archive. Both are reminders that a memorable image records a particular moment.
Two views help explain the scale
The second viewpoint changes the impression of the arch. From one direction, attention settles on the opening; from another, the surrounding mass becomes more apparent. That is a useful reminder of what a photograph leaves outside its frame. Wanda and Rick Stead’s Bay of Exploits account combines those views with a reported collapse, turning an attractive shape into a record of a structure that did not remain intact.
The account describes a wave following the collapse of the arch, a different process from the ordinary rise and fall of the tide. The photographs show the form that attracted the boat occupants’ attention, while the original linked video is unavailable. Neither a still image nor the reported outcome supplies a suitable approach distance for another iceberg; the scale and perspective of the scene leave that question unresolved.
Sources, photography and further reading
Original feature and image attributions:
- riickstead
- Life Buzz
- Giant Iceberg Splits From Argentina's Uppsala Glacier Then Flips Over In The Water With A Roar.
- Photographer Captures Manhattan Sized Glacial Quake As The Ice Splits From Its Shelf.
- Collapse Video Of A Glacier The Size Of A City | You’re Going To Find This Hard To Believe!
- Colour Striped Icebergs
- Awesome Glacier Icebergs in Antarctica Moving, Colliding, Falling, Floating, Melting Ice!
- Martin Bailey’s Antarctic iceberg photographs
- Mendenhall’s glacier-cave archive
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