In Juneau we took a seaplane over the glaciers near the city. Glaciers
cover about 10 percent of the Earth's surface. It is hard to really
appreciate the size of these glaciers until you are in the air. We
flew over the Juneau ice field which is estimated to have snow and ice
depths from 800 to over 4,500 feet. You can sometimes see vibrant
spots of blue that occur because the ice has been compressed so much
that air bubbles no longer remain in the ice. The pure ice absorbs the
reds and yellows that are part of the white light that hits the ice
therefore reflecting back only a bluish color.
