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A massive 2000 ft spinning ice circle at Gaspe Bay, Canada.
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Mystery has surrounded these discs since they were first described as long ago as the nineteenth century. A drawing of an ice circle was published in the Scientific American in 1895. Illustrated London News also catalogued one that formed near Toronto in 1930. Theories suggest that slow moving rivers can create eddies which spin the ice until it takes on a circular shape.
Joe Desloges, a river specialist and geography professor at the University of Toronto, explained that the frozen circles are actually ice pans, or surface slabs of ice that form in the center of a lake or creek, instead of along the water’s edge. As water cools, it releases heat that turns into "frazil ice" – a collection of loose, needle shaped ice particles that can cluster together in an ice pan.
Sources: The Times
National Post
