Thursday, March 7, 2013

A field of frost flowers

Thousands of cheeky little frost flowers formed on this pond just beside one of my wells. Warm, supersaturated water vapour created when the pond ice sublimates (becomes a gas) meets the colder atmosphere above the ice, and condenses into crystals. Pure natural complexity :-)

Curiously,  some of the hoar frost-like structures even formed on parts of the well itself.