Metal in icebergs?

[mecg_romancer]

I'm trying to come up with a plausible explanation as too how a specific fantasy metal ore could be found inside icebergs. I can't find any mention of this happening IRL so it can be a little fantasy but my world too gritty for the fairy's to put it there.

Thanks for any ideas .

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[MiguelDHorcrux]

Microbes living within the icebergs poop it. And it takes a really long time for enough of the ore to come, but of course the duration might depend on your story's need.

 

[mecg_romancer]

That's pretty good microbes might be too advanced science wise but ill see if i can wangle it in thanks.

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[CupofJoe]

Meteors? That's about the only real world way I think metal [iron] can be found in wild ice...
It looks like one of the best places to look for meteorites is an ice sheet in Antarctica. Wiki Ansmet

 

[mecg_romancer]

Yeah I'd thought about that but its almost always how the "special" metal gets to earth like the star metal in dragon or warhammer. It does make the most sense so maybe it could still work as a last resort.

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[Russ]

The gods put it there so only the most worthy could access it.

 

[mecg_romancer]

Haha if only the gods where so merciful :L.

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[trentonian7]

The problem is that metal is generally going to sink which means it has to form either in the ice or enter it once it's begun to form. The meteorite is a possibility, but why would the metal only be found in ice? I suppose there could be meteors that routinely strike that portion of the earth and happen to end up in icebergs more often than not.

 

[mecg_romancer]

Well icebergs are numerous and very large so if the meteor hits the underwater part too its fairly plausible I still would rather use a different way though remember it just has to be roughly plausible to someone from around 15th century Europe minus any religious connotation.

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[Jerseydevil]

Most icebergs are pieces of glaciers that break off. It may be possible that a meteor struck the glacier and a chunk ended up in a berg that broke off. That being said, the metal will almost certainly roll the berg downwards, making the ore below the waterline. If this is the case, how would people discover it in the first place? I doubt that anyone goes around very hazardous ice fields breaking apart chunks of ice for the fun of it (Titanic, anyone?). If there is enough ore, the berg will simply sink. Also, icebergs are temporary things and drift closer to the equator where they melt. If this is true in your world, the sea floor should be a treasure trove of this metal.

 

[mecg_romancer]

The metal was originally discovered one glacial winter in which the icebergs ended up stuck in the (not sure what its called) basically where the huge main river meets the sea and it becomes a coast on either side several miles accross allowing the lower areas to be examined and in the spring when they started to melt ore was washed up on some beaches.

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[Drakevarg]

I think you're referring to a delta, maybe a gulf.

As for the metal... perhaps it's more widely common as an innocuous mineral outside of glaciers, little more than sand, but in the right conditions (enormous pressure at low temperatures for a long, long time), it forms into a usable metal ore.

Dunno how scientific it is, but that's more or less how a similar material in my own setting behaves.

 

[Penpilot]

Maybe the metal doesn't originate in the iceberg. The metal is normally found in the ground, but the only place it exists is below a glacier covered land, known or unknown. The glacier expands and contracts digging the metal out and trapping it within the ice. Chunks of the glacier break off into the ocean where people can find them.

 

[mecg_romancer]

I'm getting really good ideas here guys thanks .

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[Vaporo]

What if the metal was originally mined by an ancient civilization in the north during a time when your world was warmer. As the world cooled and their cities froze over, they died out, but their constructions were left behind. Glaciers came down from the mountains and bulldozed their cities, taking the metal with it. Icebergs eventually break off from the glacier and carry the metal out to sea where your people can dig out twisted beams and nails.

Or maybe the metal that occurs in the glacier is "waste" metal from this civilization. Smelting/alloying the metal was an unreliable process, occasionally resulting in a bad metal that is still remarkably strong, but substandard. They have so much of the "pure" metal that it's not even profitable to keep the bad metal around as a cheaper alternative, causing some amount molten slag to be simply tossed out onto the ice. It then melts into the glacier so that it could later be found as "veins" or "nuggets." There could be artifacts made of the "pure metal" left over from this fallen civilization that people are constantly trying to replicate, but can't because they only have the material that was in such bad shape that not even the original civilization could salvage it.

Or, if you want a less world-buildy solution, just do something like have a volcano that spews lava laced with the ore across the landscape, were it embeds itself in or is later picked up by the glaciers.

 

[mecg_romancer]

Well my world building is an alternative earth history involving stuff I don't wanna bother talking about but there's no ancient civilisation and the old humans pre creation wouldn't have seen this stuff as its new to the world since humans appeared and stuff. I should have specified that sorry.

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[ThinkerX]

Icebergs originate from glaciers. Glaciers are pretty much gigantic bulldozers. So...

Somehow your ore formed. Maybe it was artificial, the product of a long lost race. Maybe it was formed deep underground (magma or some such) and reached the surface via a volcanic fluke. At any rate, shortly after its creation, an ice age hit. Giant glaciers ground down everything...except this metal. Eventually, the glaciers reached the sea and dropped off icebergs with bits of your metal inside - along with a lot of rocks, and maybe the odd frozen critter.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

To advance the glaciers are bulldozers post a little. The term you want is moraine, which is a subsoil deposit underneath a glacier. In essence glaciers slowly move down valleys. As they travel they pick up bits and pieces of the soil underneath them, and this gets incorporated into the ice. And then eventually they reach the sea, extend outwards, bits break off and become icebergs.

So what say there was once an ancient land filled with magic metals, that got covered / buried in ice. The ice is so thick no one can ever dig down to the ancient land. But the bergs that come from the glaciers that cover this land, sometimes carry bits and pieces of ore etc (and maybe ancient artifacts). Which makes hunting these icebergs - as distinct from other icebergs - a lucrative industry.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Queshire]

I live in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes and those ten thousand lakes came from, as termed above, bull-dozing glaciers during the last ice age.

 

[mecg_romancer]

Hi,

To advance the glaciers are bulldozers post a little. The term you want is moraine, which is a subsoil deposit underneath a glacier. In essence glaciers slowly move down valleys. As they travel they pick up bits and pieces of the soil underneath them, and this gets incorporated into the ice. And then eventually they reach the sea, extend outwards, bits break off and become icebergs.

So what say there was once an ancient land filled with magic metals, that got covered / buried in ice. The ice is so thick no one can ever dig down to the ancient land. But the bergs that come from the glaciers that cover this land, sometimes carry bits and pieces of ore etc (and maybe ancient artifacts). Which makes hunting these icebergs - as distinct from other icebergs - a lucrative industry.

Cheers, Greg.

This sounds exactly right perfect, both of you thanks thinkers and psychostick!!

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