Ice Diamond

A diamond-shaped chunk of ice floating on Caspian Sea has been captured from space by Nasa.

18:13 08 March 2017

A huge chunk of diamond-shaped ice was spotted floating in the bright blue of the Caspian Sea. The image, taken by Landsat 8’s Operational Land Imager, shows a detached grey-white ice that has probably broken away from the thicker ice and become anchored to the bottom of the sea.

 

Alexei Kouraev, a scientist at the Laboratory of Geophysical and Oceanographic Studies in France, said: 'This "island" of white ice is most probably a piece that detached from the ice field,'

 

Nasa said that the diamond-shaped ice will not survive the summer. 'With the advance of spring and rising temperatures, ice on the Caspian will soon disappear. All of the ice is first-year ice, meaning that it should not survive the summer.’

 

The same image taken by Nasa shows the Volga Delta and Caspian Sea separated by a shelf of sea ice. To the right side, one can see a well-developed expanse of consolidated ice that is just metres deep.

 

The ice diamond in the image looked like it is on the move. Kouraev said that “the wind is pushing the thin ice around this grounded ice, creating a "shadow" of open water behind it'