TITANIC ICEBERG UNDERWATER MOVIE

(Icebergs, being composed of freshwater, will begin melting at 32 degrees F, but saltwater can reach temperatures of 28 degrees F without freezing, thus acting as a huge refrigerator which preserves the ice.) Ice from western Greenland accounts for about 85% of all the icebergs that are found floating in the open Atlantic.

Most of these are small in size and melt quickly, but the larger ones are able to survive for several years and drift in the cold water-with a handful each year reaching as far as the North Atlantic Ocean. Together, they calve off between 10,000 and 15,000 icebergs each year, which then float away slowly in the currents. In western Greenland, in the region around Jakobshavn and particularly the huge Ilulissat ice shelf (almost a million acres), there are about 100 large glaciers that reach the sea. One area in particular is an especially good producer of icebergs. So, solid water (ice) floats, and only about one-eighth of an iceberg’s total mass is visible above the waterline-all the rest is underwater. Unlike most materials, in which the solid state is denser than the liquid, water expands as it freezes and ice is only seven-eighths as dense as the liquid. The behavior of icebergs is due to the unique physical properties of water. Once the glaciers reached the sea, huge chunks of ice would break off, drop into the water, and float away. These rivers of ice are known as “glaciers”. Slowly, under the force of its own immense weight, these thick layers of ice began to move, ponderously flowing downhill from the mountainous regions towards sea level at the rate of several miles per year. In areas of northern Canada and Greenland, the summers remained cool enough to prevent all of the winter snow from melting, and as these hundreds of annual layers of snow built up, the crystals within them became compacted together to form dense ice, hundreds of feet thick.

The great ice sheets began to retreat, allowing animals, plants and humans to move in rapidly and fill the new landscape.īut in the far north, some remnants of the Ice Age still remained. But I guess that’s okay.Īnd I’ll be able to admire just how beautiful the bottom of my iceberg is.The iceberg that sank the Titanic in April 1912 had a history that stretched back over several thousand years.Ībout 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age, Earth entered a period of warming known as an interglacial. Some day, people may see my book on a shelf and never have any idea how much work it took to get it there. One that’s actually visible above water for others to see. If I keep working at it, I know I’ll have an entire iceberg eventually. You see, while doing yet more revisions on book #4 in preparation for querying, making plans to start revisions on book #5, and mentally molding ideas for book #6 (which will take place partly underwater, appropriately enough!), I can feel myself creeping ever closer to that threshold. It hasn’t reached the water’s surface yet, but I have no doubt that it will. I want to write books full-time for a living (lofty dream, I realize!).īut molecule by molecule, my iceberg’s been growing skyward. I don’t want to publish a book for the sake of publishing a book. But that’s because I’m going the traditional route. I often get asked, “When will my book(s) be published?” That’s a great question, but unfortunately, one I don’t know the answer to. It started nearly seven years ago, deep under the water. Like many writers, I’m still building the foundation of my iceberg. You can’t have the top without the bottom. They never see the much bigger part beneath the water’s surface–the incredible amount of time and effort, not to mention, tears, self-doubt, temporary highs, lows, and failures that occur before that polished, published book finally claws its way into existence.īut make no doubt about it, every traditionally published book (and many a self-pubbed book) is a complete iceberg. Most people only see the finished product–the shiny, new novel sitting on the bookstore shelf (aka the top of the iceberg). The metaphorical iceberg applies to success at many things in life, but it’s an especially good representation of traditional book publishing. Well, the metaphorical bottom of the iceberg, anyway. This is the part I know a little more about.

TITANIC ICEBERG UNDERWATER MOVIE

if that movie taught us anything, it’s that we should pay a lot more attention to the bottom of the iceberg. Practically everything I know about these humongous chunks of ice comes from Titanic (one of my all-time favorite love stories). But. My experience with actual icebergs is severely lacking.

Titanic iceberg underwater