Ice Circles?

[Moontanman]

Forget about Crop Circles, now we have Ice Circles!

Crop circles are boring - it is time for ice circles - Gadling | travel blog | news, stories, deals, and tips. Go there.

[carlton-temple]

Here in the mountains of France we do not have "ice-circles" and as respectable people have no intention of having any such things in the kitchen! To my knowledge even the Mayor, who visits Paris often and is "progressive", is not so depraved as to even contemplate allowing such things. So far, in our village at least, these "circles", which I presume are yet another American craze intended to cause obese children have been kept at bay. We, of course circulate our crops like all honest farmers and have been doing so for countless generations, indeed long before that Spanish yachtsman found America!

[pamela]

posted by carlton
Here in the mountains of France we do not have "ice-circles" and as respectable people have no intention of having any such things in the kitchen! To my knowledge even the Mayor, who visits Paris often and is "progressive", is not so depraved as to even contemplate allowing such things. So far, in our village at least, these "circles", which I presume are yet another American craze intended to cause obese children have been kept at bay. We, of course circulate our crops like all honest farmers and have been doing so for countless generations, indeed long before that Spanish yachtsman found America!

not sure i am following you here..... these circles are likely the result of a whirlpool or prank-where does the obese children fit in?

[CraigD]

It appears to me that, with a few possible exceptions, ice circles are naturally occurring, not the result of artificial activity.

A short search of the www suggests that, until last few years, the phenomena was little known and only sporadically studied and reported, often in off-beat publications, although, as is often the case with such publications, some of these articles were in-depth and scientifically credible. An example is “Rings of ice”, Fortean Times #74 (1994?), 8.6 MB PDF document), which concludes:

“This is further proof that nature can and does produce precisely defined geometrical traces without the need for alien intervention.”

The earliest reference to ice circles I can find is a reference to the Feb 14 1930 Illustrated London News article “Jack Frost describes a circle”.

The basic theory of ice circles formation is that many small ice plates freeze in a circling eddy of water. As freezing continues, the plates freeze together, the outermost ones scraping against a point of land or ice attached to land, until eventually an almost perfectly circular disk forms. Ice freezing outward from land is ground into a matching circle. During the formation, many complicated, beautiful intermediate formations, such as a large disk surrounded by many small “rollers”, have been observed.

[carlton-temple]

Originally Posted by pamela

not sure i am following you here..... these circles are likely the result of a whirlpool or prank-where does the obese children fit in?

One really should be more specific about what type of "ice circles" we are talking about, otherwise one gets so confused. I understood we were talking about "ice circles" as sold by Walmart (see walmart.com), who advertise a: Girl gourmet ice cream maker, circular shape: price $9.95; hence the obese remark. Naturally in France crops=food, so ice=ice cream, do excuse the misunderstanding. I shall study "your" ice circles further but I fear the Mayor won't approve of them either.

[lemit]

When I was growing up on the farm, we would cut holes in the ice so livestock could drink. The resulting cuts would have little white piles of shavings like those in the video. I suspect human hands may have been involved in the circle shown in the video.

--lemit

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by carlton-temple

One really should be more specific about what type of "ice circles" we are talking about, otherwise one gets so confused. I understood we were talking about "ice circles" as sold by Walmart (see walmart.com), who advertise a: Girl gourmet ice cream maker, circular shape: price $9.95; hence the obese remark. Naturally in France crops=food, so ice=ice cream, do excuse the misunderstanding. I shall study "your" ice circles further but I fear the Mayor won't approve of them either.

Hmmm, I'm guessing you missed the link i included in the first post?

[pamela]

posted by carlton
One really should be more specific about what type of "ice circles" we are talking about, otherwise one gets so confused. I understood we were talking about "ice circles" as sold by Walmart (see walmart.com), who advertise a: Girl gourmet ice cream maker, circular shape: price $9.95; hence the obese remark. Naturally in France crops=food, so ice=ice cream, do excuse the misunderstanding. I shall study "your" ice circles further but I fear the Mayor won't approve of them either.

haha!!
leave it to walmart to make a buck off of the latest craze!
click on the link in the first post and let me know what the mayor would think

[carlton-temple]

Originally Posted by pamela

haha!!
leave it to walmart to make a buck off of the latest craze!
click on the link in the first post and let me know what the mayor would think

Pamela, obviously walmart aint heard of pancake-ice yet ! Those "cakes" that bung up the Arctic shipping lanes. M. le Mayor is being "progressive" again in Paris, he's always ever so "progressive" this time of year.

[pamela]

haha!! i was compelled to do a search on that one

Frazil" is the name given to ice crystals that form in very cold water that is moving around too much to let the ice form into a sheet that would become surface or pack ice.

Once the frazil ice (also called "lolly ice" or "slush") has formed on the sea's surface, water movement caused by winds or currents can herd it into globs or shapes.

"Pancake ice" is the name given to free floating and mainly circular pieces of ice that form when that surface slush accumulates into floating pads. Further freezing solidifies their tops and they take their roundish shape.

The "pancakes" can be up to 3 meters / 10 feet across, and up to 10 cm / 4 inches thick. Collisions as they float about lead to the raised rims, either from the edges getting bashed up from bonking each other, or from the slush that gets splashed onto the edges and freezes to gradually form a rim.

These are different than ice floes, which are the free floating pieces of the broken pack ice.

Would you like a little syrup with that?

Frazil and Pancake Ice

you never know, they could market a Sam's choice all natural diet pancake served with a GV brand low cal syrup. Guaranteed to flush out your alimentary canal as well as your shipping canals