Bah, giant humbugs: Incredible pictures of icebergs with black, blue

With their bizarre black, blue and even green stripes - some of these beautiful icebergs could pass for man-made works of art instead of simple quirks of nature.


From the Arctic Circle in the north to Antarctica in the south, the colourful lines and veins in their ice are formed by frozen melt water, sediment and even algae combined with huge pressures.


The blue stripes are created when gaps in the icebergs fill with melt water which freezes, while green veins are left when seawater rich with algae freezes to the bottom of the bergs.




Stripey: This spectacular iceberg in the Jokulsarlon lagoon, Iceland, looks like it has had stripes dyed into it, but they are a completely natural phenomenon





Green: This iceberg in the Orkney Islands, Antarctica, looks like it has had green paint spilled on it - but these were likely to have been caused by frozen seawater rich in algae





Phenomena: This stripy iceburg was pictured in the Skaftafell National Park in south central Iceland. These black stripes were likely caused by sediment as the berg slid downhill towards the sea




Journey: The powerful forces which propelled this iceburg through the Vatnajokull Glacier can be seen in the lines that run through it


Veins coloured brown, black and yellow are caused by sediment collected by the icebergs as they slide downhill from their glaciers into the sea, according to the Daily Cognition.




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Icebergs are large chunks of freshwater ice that have broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and float freely in open water.

They may subsequently become frozen into pack ice. About one ninth of an iceberg is above the surface of the water making them especially dangerous for ships.

Icebergs range hugely in terms of size, with one example in Antarctica measured at 12,000 square miles - bigger than Belgium - during the 1950s.






Marks: These icebergs in the Jokulsarlon glacial lagoon in Iceland look a little dirty - but their markings are made from sediment they collected when still inside their glacier





Blue: A man takes a break in the snow in front of an iceberg marked with vivid blue veins in Greenland. The blue stripes are formed by fresh water





Creation: This large iceberg in Antarctica is a vision in black and white after being marked by sediment during its development





Dramatic: A man stands on a huge iceberge in Grise Fiord, Nunavut, Canada. The peak behind him has veins of dark sediment running down the middle of it





Close-up: A section of ice calved off the Sawyer Glacier in Tracy Arm, Southeast Alaska. The picture shows the intricate detail of the glacial ice close-up





Beauty: Icebergs densely striped with sediment on Tasman Lake, Mount Cook National Park, South Island, New Zealand