nature is awesome, people are stupid

So I was searching for a particular YouTube video the other day, aka wasting my time.  For some reason whenever I get on YouTube I don't end up finding anything cool, just weird, I seem to always end up looking at something that has to do with conspiracy theory. 

But it was a good thing because I came across some really beautiful images.

via snopes.com

via snopes.com

via snopes.com

The hype is that these are "frozen waves" that once the wave rose up and hit the air it was so cold it just froze those waves dead in their tracks. 

via Todd Glaser

via thefunlearning.com

That is a really cute story but far from the truth.  These are all glaciers that have formed over many, many years, some of them appear to be clear because they froze quickly enough that no air bubbles formed in the ice which causes ice to seem white.

The wave like shape is often caused by the icebergs shifting and the pressure of the huge masses sort of squeezing a piece of ice up to make more room, in the same way that tectonic plates shift in an earth quake.  Other wave shapes are just the way that the ice has been eroded away by the churning waves.

via thefunlearning.com

via oldenhistory.blogspot.com

via oldenhistory.blogspot.com

Sometimes stripes appear in the glaciers and of course there is a logical explanation for these as well.  There is a lot of melting and refreezing of these glaciers or icebergs over time, they are often in a state of flux.  Depending on the conditions each time the refreezing can look a little different, some times if there is sediment in the water the color can get trapped in a frozen layer causing a green, brown or even yellow stripe.  Blue stripes are usually from the ice freezing without air bubbles and then when another layer with bubbles (which is white in color) freezes next to it the layer looks blue.

via the funlearning.com

via ribbu.com

So these beautiful creations are not made by aliens or some freak event, these mysterious "waves" were made by good old mother nature. 

Nature is awesome.