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Photo Of The Day.


Guest Ferret1959

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Ayjay,

 

To put my mind in "the mood" I searched "natures most unusual fractals".

 

No question in my opinion the patterns are fractal.

 

You look

 

Phone

 

I had to do a bit of googling to learn something about fractals.

 

I get the general idea, but I don't see how it explains the formation of this pattern.

 

Fractals in plants I can understand, snowflakes too, but I'm seeing some representations of fractals (google images) that make no sense to me, a bit like my pic I suppose. :unsure:

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Good shot ayjay, strange patterns I've not seen before.

 

Some tries at an explanation here,

 

http://rebrn.com/re/the-way-this-ice-froze-looks-like-a-topographic-map-3641735/

 

John.

 

Thanks John, This first idea is plausible.

 

Ice is less dense than water. The "highest" water here froze first and then floated on the remaining water before it did the same thing to the water below.

 

 

This second one doesn't fly as it was just a one night frost that caused it, (and I'm sure that the water level was more likely to have been rising).

 

I'd guess that it froze from the outside in and the water level was going down as it froze over the coarse of a few days. so its actually lower in the middle.

 

I like this third one too, (or maybe something like it) the water level is quite likely to have been changing as we'd had fairly heavy rain during the day, before the frost at night.

 

I think what actually happened is as the water froze from the outside the ice forced the unfrozen water level higher until it overflowed onto the ice edge. The overflowed water froze and the freezing continued inward.

 

This may be the best explanation, but only if the water level was dropping, it could have been, I'm only guessing about it rising, there was no obvious void under the ice, maybe the water underneath rose again after it froze.

 

It actually is a topographical map. This happens when the water is slowly receding as the puddle freezes. The surface freezes, the water level drops, the thin ice is pulled into a slightly concave shape, air suddenly seeps in from an edge, making a ring around the outside. Rinse, repeat, until all the water is gone or frozen. Each ring is a level bubble, representing a particular depth.

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