In years without fall storms, such as 1971 and 1985, Reimnitz and Kempema (1987) did not notice the production of large amounts of slush or frazil ice, but during the fall storm of 1978, the slush-ice berm was 4 m thick.
Flume studies and field observations of the interaction of frazil ice and anchor ice with sediment.
Some supercooled water may nucleate on particles in the water column or grow on small ice crystals scoured from surface sea ice, forming frazil ice. Alternatively, ice may nucleate on, or frazil ice may attach to, benthic structures (i.e., rocks, mud, detritus, or organisms), thereby forming anchor ice.
If the water is flowing during this nucleation, the resulting frazil ice may adhere to epibenthic organisms, collecting on exposed surfaces or drifting alongside and underneath.
The emergency occurred when slush, known as
frazil ice, plugged up the Millers River and diverted the water flow down Pequoig Avenue, through backyards and into Cass Meadow.
Opaque top Snow layer (1), cm cm g/[cm.sup.3] 1/97 11 0 -- 2/97 1 0 -- 3/97 4 0 -- 4/97 2 0 -- 5/97 14 4 x 6/97 13 0 -- 1/98 10 5 0.33 2/98 8 5 0.22 3/98 7 5 0.26 4/98 7 5 0.34 5/98 11 5 0.32 6/98 14 5 0.34 1/99 23 18 0.25 2/99 3 24 (0.5) (2) 3/99 3 31 (0.5) (2) 4/99 23 5 0.55 5/99 31 5 0.32 6/99 36 5 0.37 (1) snow-ice in the lakes, snow-ice or
frazil ice in the river; (2) wet snow and lower 12 cm slush, 0.5 g/[cm.sup.3] is a rough average density Table 3.
Evolution of
frazil ice in natural bodies of water.
The interface between the near-fresh upper water and underlying seawater is a potential site of
frazil ice production, owing to the different freezing temperatures of the two water masses.
"
Frazil ice" consists of fine ice crystals that form in suspension in supercooled, turbulent water.