Bizarre Natural Phenomena Vol. 60 - When The Seas Decide To Make Snowballs (Natural Snowballs Form In Siberia)
Hello there and have a great new week, everyone! Welcome to another new strange phenomenon! This time I 'll be taking you to far away and cold Siberia of October 2016. Here we are in the freezing cold Arctic Gulf of Ob (Western Siberia), near the town of Nyda. Everything is covered in snow as far as the eye can see and right there where the waves crash onto the frozen shores we make out not one, not two, but thousands of white round balls, arranged one next to the other as if they are some sort of ammunition store for an imminent snowfight (If the Night King was coming, I doubt whether these would stop him and his army of the dead).
Image from: maxpixel.net
What could it be?
Cannonballs covered in snow? Some kind of huge arctic turtles laid their eggs here? Was there a ship filled with balls that sank and all its load got washed out in the shore and froze?
Go on, touch it!
The balls are thick and cold. We push a little harder and they seem to fall apart.
They're snowballs!
Snowballs? How did they form in the first place?
Magic? Kids who wanted to play? Aliens?
Nature! In cold areas when the water, terrain morphology and wind work together, they can create snow boulders that reach sizes from a tennis ball to a basketball (or sometimes as long as one meter in diameter). In the town of Nyda (Gulf of Ob), residents reported seeing boulders with diameters of a few centimeters to even a meter, stretching at a distance of almost 18 kilometers. [2, 3]
When temperatures fall below zero, sea water starts to freeze. This first ice crystals formation is called sludge ice or slob ice. As the waves crash onto the shore, the water and wind start rolling those pieces of ice back and forth onto the beach. Imagine two hands trying to mold balls of jelly, with the seawater being the one hand and the shore being the other. And then the tide kicks in and spreads those pulpy cold masses of ice along the shore. Then the tide retreats and the cold temperatures work with snowfall and wind to help our squishy blobs slowly evolve into thicker and bigger balls of snow. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (first video)]
Watch this video to get a better idea on how these bizarre boulders form:
Amazing! Does this happen every year?
Unfortunately no! This phenomenon is very rare as a lot of factors need to coincide to make it happen. But it does not happen on Siberia solely. The residents of Nyda may have been lucky to witness it for the first time in 2016, but such formations have been reported in the US (Lake Michigan and Sebago Lake in Maine) and Stroomi beach (Estonia, Europe) some years earlier.
Look what happened in Lake Michigan back in 2015:
References
[1] siberiantimes.com
[2] livescience.com
[3] sciencealert.com
[4] smithsonianmag.com
[5] curiosity.com
Thank you so much for your time!
Until my next post,
Steem on and keep smiling, people!
To find wonder, magic, miracles, all that stuff we are so fond of, and create mythologies out of, one need look no further than to the nearest forest, river, ocean, jungle, mountain, etc.
Nature. Always around us, always magnificent!
And, anywhere where the elements mix, there is an abundance of splendor to be found.
Exactly! From the greater to the tiniest scale observable, everything is a miracle! And when you get to explain the why and how then you are left with even greater awe, because it makes you wonder what power drives all this and what for...
Cool Stuff. I used to live near the ocean in the cold northeast of the USA so I'm used to ice chunks drifting in with the tide, but never in snowball form.
Cool indeed (literally and metaphorically 😜)
It reminds me of a cave formation known as "cave pearls." They form when pebbles are lodged in a depression formed by millions of years of dripping water. Those pebbles in the depression get rolled around and agitated with every drop, which eventually forms smooth round stones, much like a rock tumbler.
A friend of mine is a world-famous professional cave photographer and he maintains this web site:
http://www.goodearthgraphics.com/under_earth/
Photo credit: Dave Bunnell and The Virtual Cave
AMAZING!! I am astonished, thank you for showing that to us!! I will surely need to do some more reading and check out your friend's site :D
πολυ ωραιο το αρθρο Ruth οπως επισης και μερικα σχολια καποιων παιδιων....θα το γυρισουμε σε εκπαιδευτικη τηλεοραση το steemit...αληθεια ομως εξαιρετικο το φαινομενο
Ευχαριστώ!! Ε αφού κάνουμε που κάνουμε την πλάκα μας, ας μάθουμε κ τίποτα ενδιαφέρον! Λες να μας έρθει κι εδώ σε καμιά Καστοριά; :Ρ
Εχεις δίκιο. Είναι πολύ εκπαιδευτικό. Η Ruth μπορεί πραγματικά να συνδυάσει όλα αυτά τα φαινόμενα και να τα δημοσιεύσει ως βιβλίο ή ακόμα και ως τηλεοπτική σειρά
Είσαι Έλληνας @samminator; Δεν το γνώριζα!
Είμαι αφρικανός αδερφός
Μαλιστα :P
Άτσα κι ελληνικά ο Sammy! :P
Έχετε δίκιο Ruthie
Wow, amazing!
They remind me of the Moeraki boulders, huge ball curved rocks, down in New Zealand.
These were shaped by the waves during millions of years, are about 2 meters wide and were believed to be giants eggs in the local legends.
More info : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moeraki_Boulders
Oh! I have done a post on Moeraki boulders in the past! Thank you, they do look a lot the same! :)
Nature in beauty and beauty in nature. I sure dont think this is magic. Just think a creative Hand did. Thank you for helping me appreciate this creative hand of the almighty creator.
Some wise creative hand with lots of love for humanity I guess.
Thank you for reading @praise-eu! :)
Hi @ruth-girl!
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That's pretty clever of mother nature, quite impressive. Next thing we know it will work out a way of rolling up snow.
Well, since it can already push snow downhill (snow rollers or snow donuts) and since waterfalls can turn upwards (@samminator has mentioned this in a post), I wouldn't be surprised if a combination of the mechanisms that work in these phenomena would create something that unique :)
Lol. That would be so weird. But nature itself is pretty weird, so we cannot expect anything less from nature
Yes, you never know what you're gonna get 😜
Another natural wonder right here and I had no clue! Had I stumbled upon such snowballs I'd definitely think someone made and placed those over there. Then I'd probably go crazy trying to find reasonable explanations. Thanks to your blog I won't have to go through this mess. Hehe
Thanks for the education!
Hehe! At your service, my Lord! Always here to inform and prepare you for the weird and unexpected :P
As soon as I saw your post alert, I knew I was in for another amazing experience, this is great, especially it being a rare occurrence as the conditions need to align. I suppose nature always has enough tricks to wow us with.
I'm beginning to think you could compile this your series and title it something like the Wonders of nature and consider using it as a form of therapy for depressed people, who knows, it may help.
Hello there @sogless!!! Your idea is actually very interesting!! Thank you so much for the feedback! :D