Enchanting pale blue ice stacked up along the shore near Mackinac Bridge in Michigan is drawing in photographers adds spectators alike.
Even social media had a taste of the spectacular view. Kelly Alvesteffer and her fiancé, Rob LaLone, posted snapshots of the blue ice on Facebook, as they were sitting in a restaurant near the area last weekend when they saw them out the window.
"We instantly saw it," Alvesteffer, who along with her partner photographs student athletic teams for Cedar Springs Public Schools, says in an MLive interview. "It was like, 'Look at the blue ice.'"
The images garnered plenty of likes and shares on the social network and are currently displayed on a Mackinac Bridge website. The attention surprised the couple, with LaLone sharing what they did not even know whether blue ice "was a normal thing or not."
Blue ice has previously cropped up, such as embellishing ice caves near Lake Superior and making for beautiful icy piles along the Sleeping Bear Dunes shore. But what produces the blue color?
According to the U.S. Geological Service, the blue tint comes from different factors, but mainly results from the shape and size of molecules present in ice crystals - and their interaction with light.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center further explains blue ice: think of ice and snow appearing white typically due to the fact that all light hitting the surface becomes reflected back. When there are coarser ice crystals and fewer bubbles in ice, though, light waves travel deeper into the ice.
"When glacier ice is white, that usually means that there are many tiny air bubbles still in the ice," adds the NSIDC.
Longer red wavelengths then get absorbed, while shorter blue ones proliferate and lead to the blue color. Furthermore, the deeper the light travels into ice, the bluer the ice will become, says the National Park Service.
For Mackinaw City resident Liza Signor, blue ice becomes easier to see once ice starts to stack up. "Usually you don't see [blue ice] until it becomes dammed up like that," she says, pertaining to the piles of ice close to the base and shore of the bridge, which spans five miles.
Signor, who works as a waitress in Pellston, always sees the bridge on her way home and expressed gratitude for "living in such beautiful area."
