Subterranean Clouds and a River of Ice Pancakes

A couple of articles about some rather interesting looking natural phenomena popped up on my news feed this morning and though they're not in any way related, I decided to make a twofer out them.

First up are these 'frozen clouds' found in a chamber of the Bustamante Caves, in the Mexican state of Coahuila. According to the post on Daily Grail, these curious bulbous structures are globular calcite formations that were created over a span of about 50 million years by a hot spring. Interestingly, the chamber was discovered by a local speleology group, Asociación Coahuilense de Espeleología, using a robot to explore areas of the cave system that are inaccessible to humans.

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Discovery News referred to circles of ice in the following image as 'Ice Pancakes' but to me they look a bit more like condoms for a really large ice giant.

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The photograph was taken by River Dee Trust biologist, Jamie Urquhart at the Lummels Pool at Birse on the River Dee, in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The theory of their formation put forth in the Discovery News article:

"Foam floating about on the water started to freeze, probably at night," said Joanna Dick of the Dee Trust in an email. "Bits of frozen foam got swirled around in an eddy, and became roughly circular. Perhaps each disc grew when smaller pieces of unfrozen foam struck the disc, adhered and then froze in place."

a reply to: theantediluvian

Discovery News referred to circles of ice in the following image as 'Ice Pancakes' but to me they look a bit more like condoms for a really large ice giant.

That was hysterical... I'm still laughing...

Those are both amazing phenomenon. That's amazing how those form from the foam swirling around until it freezes, I've never seen anything like that before.

S&F

~Namaste

Yes, that's pancake ice. You read about in most literature concerning the Arctic and Antarctic.

Interesting and unusual, made a nice change from all the gore produced these days.
Thank you.

a reply to: SonOfTheLawOfOne

That was hysterical... I'm still laughing...

Thanks, I've always found myself funny!

originally posted by: suz62
Yes, that's pancake ice. You read about in most literature concerning the Arctic and Antarctic.

I'd never heard of it, but you are 100% correct and it's even got a Wikipedia page. Here's a picture from Wikipedia of pancake ice on the Ross Sea

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and a close-up of one of the pieces from the River Dee website:

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Ice is quite amazing, it's like the clay for mother nature. Take a look at these very unusual pics from Slovenia by Marko Korosec, very alien looking. Must say I've never seen/heard of those cloud types before, cheers!

Wow! Amazing! There are so many things that I never knew existed and had I stumbled upon them myself, I would of thought aliens made them or something. LOL

"Foam floating about on the water started to freeze, probably at night," said Joanna Dick of the Dee Trust in an email. "Bits of frozen foam got swirled around in an eddy, and became roughly circular. Perhaps each disc grew when smaller pieces of unfrozen foam struck the disc, adhered and then froze in place."

A perfect example of why I get so irritated at those who try to disprove evolution by using the entropy / second law of thermodynamics as their reason.

Randomness can assemble itself into patterns in nature. It is witnessed in non-living things all the time (check out giant's causeway in ireland) so it will be even more common among organisms which have the ability to actually ADAPT.

originally posted by: Qumulys
Ice is quite amazing, it's like the clay for mother nature. Take a look at these very unusual pics from Slovenia by Marko Korosec, very alien looking. Must say I've never seen/heard of those cloud types before, cheers!

Wow, that first one looks like a frozen dragon! Cool!