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: Deserted Island: Land Ho!
Jan 20, 2006

Insanity levels may have gotten too high if they were on the island any longer… er, iceberg.

You may wonder how a small iceberg like that didn’t melt away while out to sea over these many days (they actually call them growlers when they get small). Well, if you think of the expression “tip of the iceberg” that comes from actual icebergs, yeah, imagine that. 🙂 Basically meaning that icebergs are quite huge and only the tip of them is visible above water, about 1/8th of its actual size. They have a very frozen and dense core that makes them float so low, later in their lifespan after the outer areas have dissapeared there is more like 1/9th of them visible above the water’s surface.

As far as winding back up at the continent this is also quite common. Many large icebergs will break away and then float back to land often beaching themselves and/or breaking themselves up into smaller pieces. The circumpolar current of the ocean travels around Antarctica clockwise. Inside that there are currents such as the polar current that actual travels the opposite direction as well as gyre’s which flow in circular formations that sweep the coast.

15 Comments

  1. Nick says:

    Tyler,

    Do you have a blog?

  2. Tyler Martin says:

    I do but I just haven’t been doing much with it other than posting links to some entertaining videos. I will always post any projects, comics or art I’m working on at it though in the future.

    http://mindfaucet.com/tyler.martin

  3. Matt says:

    Heh. Good joke, and nice drawing of Antarctica

  4. Kevin says:

    I do like Osbournes sense of irony.

  5. Eric the Fish says:

    Hey, love the comic! I found it through Daytime Press FOrums….. One thing Upsets me… The DISTINCT LACK OF TUMBLEWEEDS!!! Other then that, awesome comic

  6. Sev says:

    Why is the ground black? Is it from oil, or volcanos, or coal, or what?

  7. Greenjinjo says:

    All of your comics are hilarious, but this one takes the cake. Like Kevin said, the irony of Osbourne’s statement here is so true =P

  8. Tyler Martin says:

    Sev, does “it looks best in the comic” work? Heh, actually there are several old volcanoes in Antarctica that make up the black rock and soil of some areas, a couple on the peninsula. Although most of the rock there seems to be gray and soil ranges from gray to brown. Actually Antarctica has the oldest rock and soil measured on earth apparently. I think the darkness and richness of some beaches can be attributed to the penguin colonies there,as a result of their byproduct. I guess I need to do my homework and cover the rock and soil hiding under all that snow and ice a little in a news post, maybe when a comic ties into it a bit more…

    Eric, that forum was so quiet I thought I would add a tumbleweed to the mix. Haven’t added one to the comic yet though so apologies there, although I came close in the Cowboy storyline.

  9. Sev says:

    All the pictures I’ve ever seen of antarctic beaches, the soil was black.

    So I wondered if maybe you knew.

  10. Tyler Martin says:

    Probably for the same reason I prefer to do them that way. More visually appealing so those photos are more popular. There are two old volcanoes on the peninsula, where more tourists or even casual photographers are more likely to be photographing and stuff.

    Maybe photographers also tend to up the contrast to get those little penguin tuxedoes to stand out more.

  11. bobo says:

    it just fits.

  12. Vanessa says:

    This was great and I had the music in my mind to go with it: “Dun – dun – dun!”

  13. waffle_man says:

    wait…if america and england somewhat islands O_o AHHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAHHHHHHHHH

  14. Raxxon says:

    it would be so much funnier if they were in the arctic

  15. Sally says:

    Tyler are you saying that Antarctica IS a frozen island in the middle of the ocean too?

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