Breathtaking Photos Capture the Beauty of Ice Formations in Alaska

Japanese photographer Ryota Kajita has spent the past eight years capturing the patterns formed by ice in the lakes of Alaska. Many of these are frozen bubbles of gases like methane or carbon dioxide trapped under ice.

“The patterns are mysterious and wondrous, delicate and ephemeral. They form quietly, change quickly and disappear while I find only a few,” Kajita writes. “Each pattern is unique, and every season of ice formations is different. Going out and spending time on the ice over the past seven years, I feel the dynamic cycles of seasons as well as the changes in climate. I awaken to earth’s changes. The beautiful ice patterns are not intended for humans or other creatures to appreciate. They happen in nature.”

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Germany’s ‘forgotten’ Halligen islands where houses are built on handmade mounds

The Halligen are small islands only a few feet above sea level. There are ten halligen in the North Frisian Wadden Sea, just off the northwest coast of Germany. Only five of them are inhabited. The rest are part of the Schleswig-Holsteinisches Wattenmeer National Park. The name comes from the Celtic word hal, meaning “salt”, a reference to the low-lying land in the region which is often flooded over with saltwater by the tides. The very existence of the Halligen is a result of frequent floods and poor coastal protection. Dwellings and commercial buildings are built upon meter-high, man-made mounds, called Warften, to guard against storm tides.

Schleswig Holsteinisches Wattenmeer – Zitrone34 [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

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The Upside-Down Flower Towers in Glacier Gardens, Alaska

The Glacier Gardens Rainforest Adventures  is a 5- hectare botanical garden and nursery located in Juneau, Alaska. The Bowhay’s begun Glacier Gardens as a way to express their botanical creativity through the use of the natural landscape. The garden consists mainly of a forest of firs and birches. You can also find species of resistant ornamental plants from other areas of the world with an Alaska-like climate, and native plant species.
Flower Towers are the signature features of the Gardens. Each Flower Tower is made by inverting a spruce or hemlock tree with the root ball pointing towards the sky. The tree is placed trunk first into the ground and buried 5-7 ft. Fish netting is placed inside the top of the root ball to collect soils, and mosses are laid down over the netting to provide nutrients and water base, forming a basket that cradles colorful trailing flowers.

De Wendy Cutler from Vancouver, Canada – 20090603_Juneau_Cutler_4988psUploaded by PDTillman, CC BY 2.0, Enlace

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White Water Terraces

By Ariel Steiner – Own work, CC BY 2.5, Link

Baishuitai, also known as the White Water Terraces, is located in the foothills of the Haba Snow Mountains, 101 kilometers southeast of the Shangri-la County in China. The spring water runs down along the slope of the mountain, leaving an impression of a large white jade carving among the green mountain. The variegated land form of the tableland is a continual deposition of calcium carbonate that is contained in the spring water. Every year, the surface of the land is covered by the deposition and finally transformed into the terraced structure you see today.

Organic Architecture Grown From Living Trees

Architecture made out of living trees  requires not only using nature as it is but also shaping it to the required form. The first examples of using trees to create living structures are bridges across Asia.

Tree Cathedral Bergamo, Italy
The Cattedrale Vegetale uses trees and branches to create a cathedral-like structure. The frame was completed in 2010 as part of the United Nations’ International Year of Biodiversity, but beech trees take decades to fully mature.

Pava [CC BY-SA 3.0 it], from Wikimedia Commons

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China’s Spectacular Cliff Paths

Huangshan (literal meaning Yellow Mountain) is a mountain range in southern Anhui province in eastern China. The area is well known for its scenery, sunsets, peculiarly-shaped granite peaks and pine trees. Huangshan is a frequent subject of traditional Chinese paintings and literature.
There are more than 30 touring paths in total in Huangshan mountains, which are 50 km (31mi) in total length and 1-2 meters (3-6ft) wide generally.

Stephane.janel [CC BY-SA 3.0], from Wikimedia Commons

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