A hike through the rain forest canopy in the Amazon. A snoozing polar bear in Arctic Svalbard. A hidden waterfall in Alaska. Fearsome looking marine iguanas (Darwin’s “imps of darkness”) in Galápagos.
See it all in the latest Photos of the Week.
Massive Iceberg Breaks Free from Greenland
A massive iceberg roughly twice the size of Manhattan broke loose from Peterman Glacier in Greenland. The Associated Press reports: “Many of Greenland’s southern glaciers have been melting at an unusually rapid pace. The Petermann break brings large ice loss much farther north than in the past, said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.”
The southern glaciers of Greenland are a bellwether. Just two years ago another colossal berg broke free from the same glacier, and scientists say that in data collected over 150 years they’ve never seen anything like it.
See this region of Greenland with us in July or August of 2013, and join the climate change conversation with firsthand knowledge.
Watch an Iceberg Collapse in Antarctica
A crewmember on the Sea Shepherd in Antarctica captured this unusual sequence of images a couple years ago. “I literally raised my camera to my eye (Canon 1D Mark II w/70-200/2.8L lens), and the arch collapsed. I mashed the shutter button down and captured 20 frames—in bursts. I shot in bursts because I was afraid that the buffer wouldn’t hold.” He put it together those shots in this 9-second clip of the iceberg arch’s collapse. Antarctica is the world’s last great wilderness—come see it for yourself.
Galápagos Shot: As Up-Close As It Gets
One of our guests traveling aboard National Geographic Endeavour in Galápagos sent in this photo they snapped while kayaking two days ago. Juvenile sea lions are plentiful at Punta Cormorant this time of year, and the playful animals often hop off the shore to come in for a closer look while our guests kayak and snorkel—one sea lion even leapt onto our glass-bottom boat nine months ago. Join us in Galápagos and experience their playful nature for yourself.
This is Our Planet
Take a trip into low Earth orbit for a unique look at home. Filmmaker Tomislav Safundžić cut together this edit of Earth as seen from the International Space Station.
NASA also recently released this image of the top of the world, that includes the entire high Arctic region. It’s compiled from 15 satellite passes of a spacecraft that circled earth pole-to-pole in May and offers a look from a seldom-seen vantage point.
Casey Anderson in Southeast Alaska
Casey Anderson, a bear expert and host of Nat Geo Wild’s program America The Wild, joined us in Alaska last month. Here he shares some insight into how the bears along the shore are interacting with us even as we sit and watch them from afar.
The Top Photos of the Week
Polar bear piggyback in Svalbard, crowded ledges at Cape Fanshawe, beautiful birds of Galápagos, and scavenging off bears in Alaska—see it all and much more in the latest Photos of the Week.
Special Delivery from the High Arctic
Last week National Geographic Explorer stopped near Phipps Island in the Sjuøyane group, where we often disembark to explore during our Land of the Ice Bears expedition. At a rescue hut behind the beach, our guests discovered a crate with a note offering a $100 reward upon delivery to Svalbard’s capital Longyearbyen. A little investigation revealed it was left behind by the ARAT 2012 Expedition, two men who recently traveled 55 days overland from the North Pole. They rested at the hut two days before continuing on. The crate was delivered yesterday. (No word on whether our staff accepted the $100 reward.) See more in the Daily Expedition Report; or see the High Arctic for yourself on Land of the Ice Bears.
“One of Those Days” in Alaska
“This is insane.” Last month in Alaska our video chronicler was on when everything just seemed to go right one afternoon. In the course of a morning our guests saw humpback whales, a brown bear with her cubs, orcas, eagles, and lunge-feeding whales. Join us in Alaska and get a full week you’ll never forget.
Lonesome George, Last Pinta Tortoise in Galápagos has Died
The staff at the Galápagos National Park has announced that the tortoise Lonesome George has died. George had become an emblem of the Galápagos Islands and a symbol of wildlife conservation worldwide. He was the last known survivor of Pinta Island in Galápagos, and his passing marks the extinction of the subspecies. In the decades we’ve been sharing the wonder of Galápagos with our guests, thousands of them have seen and photographed George on Santa Cruz Island, learning of his plight. His death is a sad day for our staff, especially those who have worked in Galápagos for years. The important work and tremendous successes of the Galápagos National Park Service in repopulating other islands continues.