Saturday 4 January 2014

Ice phenomenon follow-up

Since I posted the pics of the "Angel Hair" ice in Kielder on Boxing day I've researched some more and appear to have found some definitive explanations.  There's a professor at Illinois State University who has become obsessed with ice formations and by following links from his blog I found a German article, fortunately with English summary sections.  The conclusions seem to be:

*  This type of ice is formally called Haareis or Hair Ice
*  It is caused by the presence of winter-active fungi in decaying hardwood
*  It only forms where the bark has been lost from dead twigs/branches
*  CO2 released by the fungi forces water, plus some organic material, out through small channels in the dead wood
*  The organic material acts as a freezing catalyst for rapid ice formation near the exit points
*  Thus happens at temperatures only slightly below zero
*  Experimentally, if the fungi are killed the ice formation no longer happens

Hair Ice is reported from various places in Europe and also from the Pacific North West of the USA

2 comments:

  1. Excellent Richard, I must keep a look out for it during the next cold spell...

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  2. Fascinating! I would not thought that there would have been an organic component in such cold conditions

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