What is Blue-ice area?

A blue-ice area is an ice-covered area of Antarctica where wind-driven snow transport and sublimation result in net mass loss from the ice surface in the absence of melting, forming a blue surface that contrasts with the more common white Antarctic surface. Such blue-ice areas typically form when the movement of both air and ice are obstructed by topographic obstacles such as mountains that emerge from the ice sheet, generating particular climatic conditions where the net snow accumulation is exceeded by wind-driven sublimation and snow transports.

Only about 1% of Antarctic ice area can be considered to be blue-ice area, but they have attracted scientific interest due to the large numbers of meteorites that accumulate on them; these meteorites either fall directly on the blue-ice area and remain there or they fall elsewhere into the ice sheet and are transported to the blue-ice area by ice flow. Additionally, ice up to 2.7 million years old has been obtained from blue-ice areas. Blue-ice areas are sometimes used as runways for aircraft.