Bubbly Water Towers In A Pond

If you click on the topic "phenomena" in the right column, most of the posts and comments you will see are about tilting icicles--from a few winters ago. Now, from odd habits of ice hanging down I share a report of the odd world of ice that bubbles up. Friends Marge and Dick have a small pond in their back yard. Marge just sent photos and their thoughts on the how-and-why of bubbly ice towers that have formed on the pond this winter.

First her photos, then her words, then a couple more photos.

March 5. from Marge Boehner

During the winter, a "bubbler" sits on the bottom of our pond and helps to aerate it when it freezes over.  Since we began using the bubbler, fish in the pond have not died over the winter.  This year, for the first time, formations have been forming above the bubbler.  They seem to consist of foamy water that bubbles up and continually freezes during the night, building odd shapes that then melt away during the day.  The first two pictures are fairly typical, but we often see multiple and taller formations.  The third picture shows the tallest formation that we have seen. We don't know the cause, but suspect that the foamy nature of the water may be due to decaying matter in the pond.  Though it is cleaned out each fall, this year we think more leaves than usual fell into the pond after it had been cleaned.

[] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] []

March 6. from Marge Boehner

Here are pictures of today's creation; I just saw it "spit" a bit of foam into the water about a foot away.

Thoughts and Theories?