Ice eggs, or ice balls, are a rare phenomenon caused by a process in which small pieces of
sea ice
Sea ice arises as seawater freezes. Because ice is less density, dense than water, it floats on the ocean's surface (as does fresh water ice). Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth's surface and about 12% of the world's oceans. Much of the world' ...
in open water are rolled over by wind and currents in freezing conditions and grow into
spheroid
A spheroid, also known as an ellipsoid of revolution or rotational ellipsoid, is a quadric surface (mathematics), surface obtained by Surface of revolution, rotating an ellipse about one of its principal axes; in other words, an ellipsoid with t ...
pieces of ice. They may collect into heaps of balls or 'eggs' on beaches where they pack together in striking patterns.
The gentle churn of water, blown by a suitably stiff breeze makes concentric layers of ice form on a seed particle that then grows into the floating ball as it rolls through the freezing currents.
Given enough time, the frozen balls can grow to become boulder size. In 2016, giant snowballs washed up on a beach in Siberia, some measuring a metre (about 3 feet) across.
An ice specialist from the
Finnish Meteorological Institute
The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI; ; ) is the government agency responsible for gathering and reporting weather data and forecasts in Finland. It is a part of the Ministry of Transport and Communications but it operates semi-autonomousl ...
has been quoted as saying ice balls are rare, but not unprecedented, and occur about once a year on the Finnish coastline as conditions allow.
They also appear on the
North American Great Lakes along with
pancake ice
Pancake ice is a form of sea ice that consists of round pieces of ice with diameters ranging from 30 centimetres (12 in) to 3 metres (9.8 ft) and thicknesses up to 10 centimetres (3.9 inches), depending on the local conditions. It forms as a res ...
, forming in the middle of the lake, where they are called ice balls.
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See also
*
Yukimarimo
Yukimarimo are balls of fine frost formed at low temperatures on the Antarctic Plateau, Antarctic plateau during weak wind conditions. Yukimarimo were discovered in 1995 at Dome F by the 36th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE-36) at te ...
– Wind blown balls of fine frost accumulated by electrostatic attraction in polar conditions.
*
Snow roller
A snow roller is a rare meteorological phenomenon in which cylindrical snowballs are formed naturally as chunks of snow roll down hill or are blown along the ground by wind, picking up further snow along the way, in much the same way that the l ...
– Naturally formed snowballs on mountainsides which accumulate as snow rolls down the slope. They are usually cylinders.
*
Snowball
A snowball is a sphere, spherical object made from snow, usually created by scooping snow with the hands and pressing the snow together to compact it into a ball. Snowballs are often used in games such as snowball fights.
A snowball may also be ...
– An artificial
spherical
A sphere (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ) is a surface (mathematics), surface analogous to the circle, a curve. In solid geometry, a sphere is the Locus (mathematics), set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three ...
object made from
snow
Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes.
It consists of frozen crystalline water througho ...
, usually created by scooping snow with the hands, and pressing the snow together to compact it into a ball.
References
Snow or ice weather phenomena
Sea ice