Glacier

“To venture into realms where no man has ever been, like in a Jules Vernes novel”— this sums up the motivation behind extreme-photographer Carsten Peter’s documentary images taken inside glaciers. Ten percent of the earth’s surface is covered in ice, yet man’s knowledge of the ice masses remains limited. Scientists and explorers descend into glacial clefts in order to gain a better understanding of them—and to marvel at their splendor. Following a helicopter ride over the Greenland ice shelf lasting several hours, an expedition discovered the enormous ‘glacial shaft’ shown in our photo. Rivulets form on the ice surface in summer, seeping down into vertical crevices, continuously hollowing them out. In the fall, when the rivulets have frozen over, glaciologists can explore the nameless subterranean ice palaces created in this way. Their beauty is short-lived, however. Throughout winter, the gigantic caves are largely crushed by the softer flowing ice—until they are remodeled by the meltwater in spring.

(Photos: Carsten Peter, Text: Bernd Hauser)