Wonders of Iceland

Northern Lights reflecting off the walls of a huge ice cave on a moonlit night. Iceland 03/2015 Photo © copyright by Mika-Pekka Markkanen

Fire and Ice

Piece of Vatnajökull glacier backlit by the rising Sun. Iceland 03/2015 Photo © copyright by Mika-Pekka Markkanen

Ice Cave Man

Self-portrait taken inside an ice cave. Iceland 03/2015 Photo © copyright by Mika-Pekka Markkanen

Arctic Storm

Pieces of ice bergs sit on the black lava beach on the southern coast of Iceland on a stormy evening. After spending thousands of years under immense pressure at the bottom of the nearby glacier, the ice has been squeezed free of oxygen bubbles, giving it a stunning blue/turquoise look. Iceland 03/2015 Photo © copyright by Mika-Pekka Markkanen

Night at the Glacier Lagoon

Northern Lights dancing above the famous Jökulsárlón -glacier lagoon. Iceland 03/2015 Photo © copyright by Mika-Pekka Markkanen

Enter Iceland

Twilight view from inside an ice cave. Vatnajökull, Iceland 03/2015 Photo © copyright by Mika-Pekka Markkanen

Back to the Ocean

Pieces of ice bergs that drift out of the nearby glacier lagoon meet the fierce North Atlantic Ocean and get stranded on a black lava sand beach. After spending thousands of years under immense pressure at the bottom of the nearby glacier, the ice has been squeezed free of oxygen bubbles, giving it a stunning clear blue/turquoise look. The water that was locked away for so long is eventually releazed back to where it came from. Iceland 03/2015 Photo © copyright by Mika-Pekka Markkanen

The Land of Ice

Once this stunning blue ice was just snowflakes that landed on the top plateaus of the mountains on the great Vatnajökull glacier. During hundreds and thousands of years the snow compressed to ice and kept compressing as new snow kept falling. As the glacier slowly runs down on a kind of a water slide it carves the mountains as it finds its easiest and fastest way down creating spectacular valleys on its way. As it does so the ice cracks and bends and twists and sometimes the ancient blue bottom ice is revealed. The bottom ice is blue because the huge pressure under tens of meters of ice squeezes the air out of it. The dense airless ice absorbs other colors more efficiently than blue and that gives it its marvelous blue and turquoise appearance. The blue ice could be hundreds or even thousands of years old. The dark stripes that can be seen on the blue ice are ash and rock from ancient volcanic eruptions (and you can see how the ice has twisted since the stripes are not horizontal but random). This as so many other glaciers in the world is retreating and in few decades there will probably be a big deep glacial lagoon where this photo was taken and the edge of the glacier will be tens or even hundreds of meters up the valley. This particular glacier tongue of Vatnajökull has been a movie scenery for at least Batman Begins, Interstellar and Game Of Thrones. Vatnajökull, Iceland 03/2015 Photo © copyright by Mika-Pekka Markkanen