Science

Advancing, Icily

34 Comments

Screen shot 2013-06-11 at 9.11.13 PM

Now that the weather has turned warmer, I was not expecting to write about ice – especially after so many months with the opportunity right outside my window every single day. But this video from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory amazed me. The scientists there have figured out what might cause unusual markings they’ve seen on the surface of Mars. Downhill tracks that have a distinctive profile – a certain shape that helps explain how they were formed.

Under the right temperature conditions, dry ice can glide down a slope on a cushion of gas.

I love it that researchers were able to duplicate the effect here on Earth. Sliding blocks of dry ice down sand dunes is a form of light entertainment I hope to try someday – a kind of stranded-in-the-desert shuffleboard, I guess.

The notion of ice in motion reminded me of this incident from a couple of months ago, when the slowly melting lake ice in Lake Mille Lacs was pushed by a spring wind to create a real-life version of the voracious ice monster in a child’s nightmares. It comes across as the evil spawn of a slithering blob and a slow-motion avalanche.

Fun, at first. But horrifyingly relentless as it creeps, creepily.

http://youtu.be/8UgUFgROA8Q

I realize that we do not have to worry much about hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes in the Upper Midwest, but it feels like the ice is all around us, and on the advance.

What natural phenomenon strikes you as unnatural?

34 thoughts on “Advancing, Icily”

  1. Unnatural?? That would be over two weeks with weather forecasts showing sunshine for the next day (14 days in a row) yet not a single day of sunshine yet. I’ve never seen such a long streak of daily forecasts being consistently wrong and it’s really getting to me.

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    1. We are SO different! I hate hot, muggy weather. Hate it, hate it, hate it! I’ve rarely been so delighted with the weather as I have been these past two weeks. Delicious, spectacular, awesome chilly weather, day after day! It is, of course, too good to hold up as we move on deeper into summer. You and I belong to totally different religions. I do NOT worship the Sun God!

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      1. As I read Cb’s post, she’s looking for sunshine, not necessarily “hot, muggy weather,” and I can’t say that I blame her. I don’t like hot and muggy either, but a little sunshine sure would be welcome at this point.

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      3. I’m with you, Steve. Hate the heat, hate mugginess, hate direct sunlight, hate sweating, hate sunburns. I have a friend who has opposite SAD–he wilts and gets depressed when it’s hot and bright, reviving in the autumn. We commiserate. His partner, on the other hand, has classic SAD and has experimented with full-spectrum lights to get her through the winter. Interesting relationship in many ways.

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      4. I’m with you, Steve. The sun came out for a little bit yesterday and I thought I was going to die from the combination of heat and humidity. And it wasn’t even very hot. I am a wimp when it comes to heat and worse than a wimp when it’s humid.

        However, I distinctly remember that Sunday, June 2 (less than 2 weeks ago) was not rainy or even cloudy. Sun shining, 70 degrees, light breeze, low humidity – THAT’s the kind of sunny day I like. I remember it was that date since it was youngest daughter’s graduation party.

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        1. Sheesh, that’s what happens when I reply to someone’s comments without reading the other replies first…I look like I’m copying someone else’s words (in this case, CG). No plagiarism intended.

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  2. Good morning. I assume that the natural phenomenon that seems unnatural could include living things. I think that many kinds of animals found in the oceans are very unnatural looking such jelly fish, sea urchins, and star fish. The animals found in fresh water do not come in so many unusual forms. There is one fresh water animal that I think is vey unusual, the fairy scrimp.

    Fairy scrimp are close relatives of brine scrimp. Some of you might know about brine scrimp which are very small scrimp that can be hatched from eggs to feed to aquarium fish. Fairy scrimp are larger than brine scrimp at up or more than an inch long. You can find them in temporary ponds in the spring found in wood lands. Like brine scrimp they hatch from eggs which are found in the bottom of the temporary ponds. I did some exploring of woodland ponds when I was young and found some ponds where you could see these scrimp gliding around in the water.

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  3. The aurora borealis strike me as unnatural; beautiful, but unnatural. I have been fortunate enough to see them any number of times, and they inevitably take my breath away. They are one of the few natural phenomena that I have had the pleasure of experiencing that actually made me stop whatever I was doing and just watch, sometimes for hours on end.

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      1. that is an amazing film of the northern lights. I get mezmorized by them whe I see them but they are usually little 3 inch wide deal over the city about as bright as the stars they are up there with, if you get some movement that’s a huge plus. if its bright enough to see that’s even better. used to see it as a kid on the family trips to north Dakota on summer nights but not too much lately. if I ever saw a show like this I would simply pull over and be wowed until it was done. if it went for a week I would lose some weight. that is incredible. coral reefs are kind of like that too. unbelievable in their beauty. if you get you head on right so is the meadow outdide the window with the cardinals and crickets and frogs. I heard someone say they are some morel mushrooms the other day and I went damn I need to go check my spots and see if I can find a dinner snack. the planet is pretty cool if you stand back and watch but it si still pretty tough to compete with that thermos for true wonder.
        how does it know?

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    2. I also think that the aurora borealis is beautiful and strange, PJ. I haven’t seen the full blown versions that I know can sometimes be seen, but even the less spectacular displays that I saw were amazing.

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  4. I can’t decide if drought or flood is more unnatural. Whenever we in the west of ND get enough rain, it floods in the east. When things are in equilibrium in the east, we burn up. Water is powerful even when it isn’t around. I find it sort of scary.

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  6. The sight of a waterfall can mezmorize me for long periods of time. It kind of induces daydreams northern lights does the same thing but waterfalls require a focused effort to pull me away. I get lost in la la land and drift away to thoughts of things other than work and politics and drudgery. It stirs up a dream reflex where walks and lush surroundings and bird chirpings and general feelings of well being take over. Niagra falls blew me away
    I told my seventh grader I would take her to minnehaha for her first visit some time soon
    Maybe this weekend to see the falls with some serious water flow. It doesn’t feel unnatural. It feels so natural it feels unnatural

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  7. This morning I witnessed a very large, old snapping turtle digging up a section of boulevard to lay her eggs right next to the concrete curb in the middle of a residential section of town. Pippin and I walked a block or two to the north (closer to Lake Tetonka) and observed where she had spent the night digging a number of holes, only to change her location to one closer to the center of town. Unnatural indeed.

    This will sound heretical: I have really enjoyed this cool, damp spring. This is the first year we have had adequate rainfall around here in quite a long time. My gardens aren’t a disappointment this spring, as they have been for several years. I have actual grass growing in my lawn and my garden plants are looking particularly robust. Yesterday was the first day I felt uncomfortably hot, with the humidity so high. I’m like Steve in preferring cooler weather to the hot and muggy days. Another thing about these cloudy days is color. Color appears saturated when the sun is behind clouds; these are photographers’ preferred conditions. I am unusually addicted to beautiful scenery and will go out of my way to find it. This spring has been a feast for the eyes due to adequate rainfall and I like it.

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    1. nice to see you back krista
      I saw a huge snapper crossing the street two days ago. it stopped traffic to allow it to make it safely. its nice to see nature trying to do its best to coexist with sprawl.
      I too have been delighted with the weather, the 60 degree days and crisp nights have me in heaven. I leave the doors open all day and all night and while I witht eh sun would bpeek it head through to cheer my soul from the bleak gray drab boredom of spring 2013. the heat and humidity that brought out the misquitoes yesterday and made me recall the hot sticky armpits of summer can hide out a while longer as far as im concerned.
      san diego and Hawaii are wonderful paridises that qualify as unnatural natural things. come to think of it why doesn’t everyone live there? I had a friend move to maui after high school. and when I asked her why she moved there she said have you been there? I said yeah, she said why did you leave? she had a point there. the magic of ideal weather makes you wonder why we don’t all move to where it would be ideal. my aunt and uncle moved to Hawaii years ago and laughed because the house they bought had no heater air conditioner or screens. they thought someone had riped them off then they found out it just wasn’t eneeded there. it was never too hot or too cold and bugs weren’t an issue. little lizards maybe but if that’s all you got im ok with little lizarsds.

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  8. My first travels around the country I was amazed by the beauty of the natural surroundings in the lake areas the badlands of Dakota the mountains of Colorado Utah Wyoming and then up into Montana on route to banff and jasper. I stopped in Yellowstone and was taken with all the freaks of nature. Sulphur bubbling mud pits, hots springs leaving mountains of white deposits he size of football fields geysers like old faithful and loads of bigger and smaller ones in every direction those unbelievable hot springs with the blues and greens that look like something out of fairyland. Petrified wood , bears, bison, elk , moose, big horn sheep wolves and no towers to allow communication by cell phone or Internet. Thought it was just freaky stuff vs natural beauty in the rest of the Rockies. I have come to appreciate Yellowstone as an unnatural natural resource
    One of my favorite places

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    1. I’m with you, tim. I think the badlands are amazing natural/unnatural phenomenon and i think the same about the bubbling hot springs and the geysers in Yellowstone.

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      1. Yellowstone and the Badlands are good choices; add Hells Half Acre in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming, and you have a trifecta of baffling natural wonders

        .

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  9. Bug transformations are both strange and wonderful: how a weird looking caterpillar becomes a lovely butterfly or a dragonfly nymph (which looks like an ugly beetle) becomes a lovely, svelte dragonfly. With the exception of some markings on the caterpillars, there is little there to indicate what the creature will become when it is transformed. Whacky and magical.

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  10. I know I’ve been places when I said, “That looks like it should be part of a sci-fi movie.” Maybe it was in the Badlands, Jim… I get mesmerized by watching fire the same way tim does with waterfalls. I can hardly pull myself away from a campfire, esp. after dark – the way the little licks of flame are so unpredictable, and the colors and intensity keep changing…

    I am happy with the cool, but the humidity is getting to me, and I can’t image it when we get a hot sunny day. On the other hand the ground has been soft enough to move perennials around, so the flower gardens are getting a much needed revamping.

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