Dr. James Carter is a professor in the Department of Geography-Geology at the University of Illinois. One of his many interesting pages collects photos and other reports (dating back to 1884) of so-called “hair ice,” “haareis,” or (my fav) “silk frost.” The fibrous ice crystals seem to be caused by the pore structure of certain woods, and only forms where the bark has been removed. Reportedly, the phenomenon is reproducible: if you find a piece of wood growing hair ice, you can warm it up, then re-freeze it, and it will grow hair ice again. [via Neatorama]
12 thoughts on “Beautiful ‘silk frost’ fibrous ice formations”
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This seems like something the environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy would make.
Looks like he’s actually a prof at ISU, not the U of I.
Looks like what we always called “hoar frost” although, looking on wikipedia, this does not appear to be correct. However, I think there are a lot of people in Arkansas who would call this kind of frost “hoar frost”
@SteveC
Maybe you had some Germans there. “Hoar” is very similar to “Haar” which is German for “hair” ans sounds like “hoar” in some dialects.
I wonder if someone could flavour the wood and refreeze it for a tasty dessert.
Wow! That looks amazing. I’ve seen a lot of ice in nature and nothing that resembles this.