In the 4th century AD, the brother of the Japanese emperor Nintoku gave him a gift of ice from a mountain. The Emperor was so happy with the gift that he named the first of June as the “Day of Ice” and ceremoniously gave blocks of ice to his officials.
Icebergs are always made out of fresh water. True icebergs are glacier fragments that have fallen into the sea. Glaciers are composed of fresh water, and thus true icebergs are too. Additionally, ‘sea ice’ that forms from frozen sea water is also fresh- this is because the salt is excluded from the ice crystal lattice […]
Ice is a mineral just as much as Quartz is. Ice is a naturally occurring compound with a defined chemical formula and crystal structure, thus making it a legitimate mineral. Its only limitation, in comparison to all other minerals, is that it is not stable at room temperature.
The first time I found out about this, it totally tripped me up. You see, Iceland – a country with 11% of its surface covered by glaciers; a country whose name literally starts with the word “Ice” – imports most of the ice they use in their beverages. What the what?
Maybe not so much, when you consider that the country’s rugged geography makes extracting many natural resources difficult. Not only that, but economics play a part; Iceland has extremely high domestic labor costs compared to cheap inbound shipping costs, which means they can import ice for far less than it would cost to pay a crew to harvest it.
If you’re interested in learning more, check out the video below from Half as Interesting.
The imported ice cubes are sold in grocery stores for far less than the price of native cubes, which can be up to 40% higher, and come from Norway, the U.K. and the U.S.
Biologist Rannveig Magnusdottir, who works at Icelandic Environment Association, commented that he finds “this completely insane, as I’m sure most people do, and I think our cousins in Norway and Scotland laugh at the fact that they can sell Icelanders ice.”
In 1959, a Norwegian insulation company took on the challenge from a radio station of driving a truck carrying three tons of ice from the arctic circle to the equator. The ice only lost 11% of its mass during the 27 day long journey. 00