I like to offer an explanation with many of the pictures I show. But, I just don’t know what is going on here.
I was walking beside some ponds on the south side of Kokanee Creek Park when I saw ice blocks (up to about 30 cm) sitting on a thin sheet of ice on the water. I even imagined that they might be caused by children breaking an ice layer. But, there was scant evidence of foot prints near the pond. Besides, there were a number of sightings on different ponds, some in places largely inaccessible to humans. So, children breaking an ice layer seems unlikely.
Besides, why were there so many ice blocks of a nearly rectangular shape? And why were they common in one place and absent in, what appeared to be, a similar adjacent place?
I looked online for an explanation and only found a few pictures often from other continents. But, they were just pictures on a market sight — with not a word of explanation.
Sigh, for now, a scene like this is, for me, unexplained. Beside the obvious that the temperature is low (well, only about -4 °C), how did they come about?
Many nearly rectangular ice blocks sit on a thin layer of ice on a pond.
Fascinating observations, as usual, and certainly enjoyed. Ice is quite an ever-interesting phenomenon, for sure!
…are they near the shoreline..?..kids throwing stones up high to fall down and break through thin ice layer..broken pieces splashed up to sit on top of unbroken ice surface..?
Allan
Woodbuty Village
it could be from the breaking up of ice around the edge of the pond due to wind. The ice could’ve been thicker at the edge, having been there longer and piling up from again wind. Just a thought.