14 December 2014

Have you ever seen these ice structures?

Needle ice forms when the soil is still warm and the air is freezing.  As ice forms on the soil’s surface, it draws up subsurface water by capillary action and builds new ice from the bottom.  The result is a structure that looks like needles or tiny barricades. Since there is very little soil above the ice it pokes into the air.

Later in the season when the soil freezes, needle ice forms underground as part of a frost heave.  Click here to see a cut-away frost heave in Vermont.

This patch of needle ice formed above a seep at Moraine State Park last weekend.  Downstream the ground was squishy but here it was forming ice that looked like tiny walls.

Watch for these ice sculptures on moist soil.

(photos by Kate St. John)