3/17/2005: Massive ice sculpture in Alaska... collapses

[BigV]

From the story: "Reeves expects to have accumulated around 80,000 tons of ice..."

It crushed itself.

You can see evidence of just how heavy and hard the ice was pressed, by looking at the brilliant blue parts in the wreckage of the last photo. That's the same blue you see in glaciers due to the extreme pressure compressing the ice. The reason for glaciers' blue color is that the density of the ice is so compressed that the ice crystals' forms are such that they absorb all the other colors of the light spectrum.

A vertical conical baby glacier.

Originally Posted by glatt

That's got to be some water bill leaving those hoses running all winter...

It's too bad it collapsed. I was following this thing, and hadn't checked in in a few weeks. I'm sad, kind of like when Old Man of the Mountain in NH collapsed.

I guess the water was free since he paid $200 to $300 per month in electricity pumping it out of the ground.