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Ice eggs, or ice balls, are a rare phenomenon caused by a process in which small pieces of
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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 dense than water, it floats on the ocean's surface (as does fresh water ice, which has an even lower density). Sea ice covers about 7% of the Earth's surface and about 12% of the world's oce ...
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 obtained by rotating an ellipse about one of its principal axes; in other words, an ellipsoid with two equal semi-diameters. A spheroid has cir ...
pieces of ice. They may collect into heaps of balls or 'eggs' on beaches.
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 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 American Great Lakes where they are called Ice balls.
See also
* Yukimarimo
Yukimarimo are balls of fine frost formed at low temperatures on the Antarctic plateau during weak wind conditions. Yukimarimo were discovered in 1995 at Dome F by the 36th Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE-36) at temperatures of –59 ...
- 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 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 a large ...
- An artificial spherical
A sphere () is a geometrical object that is a three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. A sphere is the set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three-dimensional space.. That given point is the ce ...
object made from snow
Snow comprises 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 throughout ...
, usually created by scooping snow with the hands, and pressing the snow together to compact it into a ball.
Reference