Thursday, March 12, 2009

Waves of ice

Again Michigan, but this time it's not frozen waves of water, it's moving waves of ice!

And to me it seems only marginally more realistic. What kind of wind can push a huge wave of ice at speed? (This one I do believe happened as decribed, but it just seems incredible. I wouldn't want to live in a place like that.)

I'm pretty sure though that she's mistaken when she says it comes from a glacier. I don't think there are any glaciers in Michigan, and surely none on lakes.

Update: Paul points to this amateur video, which shows a similar phenomenon happening. Although per the first video, that one happened a lot faster, the man said he turn and ran from the wave of ice coming.

3 comments:

Monsieur Beep! said...

I saw photos of an avalanche recently, destroying AnYThinG in its path!
The rooms of houses where filled with the fine powder of snow, if not completely destroyed by the avalanche. It was terrible!

Paul Kierstead said...

Try watching http://tinyurl.com/cu5ec9 . That phenonom is usually caused by incoming surge from an offshore storm and can create massive piles of ice at the shore.

Ray said...

"I don't think there are any glaciers in Michigan, and surely none on lakes."

I think you're right, Eolake. I grew up in northern Ontario, which is directly north of Michigan in Canada, and as far as I know, there isn't a glacier within hundreds of miles of either Ontario or Michigan.
Evidently, during the last Ice Age, the ice was so thick over that part of the continent (about a mile or two in thickness, I think) that its weight as it slowly
moved (like a glacier) over the land below it actually ground down the high points, and after it melted there were no large mountains in that region on which to form glaciers. I've been told that prior to that Ice Age, that region had some of the highest mountains on the continent, but now
those are reduced to gently rolling hills. Much of the mineral wealth of that region is due to the exposure of formerly deeply buried ore bodies, now much closer to the surface where they were more easily found.