18 Frozen Lakes, Ponds and Seas: Baikal, Abraham Lake and Frost Flowers

When water freezes, it can record its own story: methane bubbles stacked like coins under the surface, turquoise slabs pushed up by the wind, delicate frost flowers on new sea ice. These 18 frozen lakes, ponds and seas, from Siberia’s Lake Baikal to Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound, show the many shapes winter ice can take.

Lake Baikal, Siberia: the oldest and deepest lake

Lake Baikal in southern Siberia is the deepest lake in the world, reaching 1,642 m, and at an estimated 25 to 30 million years old, also the oldest. Up to 636 km long, it holds about 19% of the planet’s unfrozen fresh water and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996. Its only seal, the nerpa, lives nowhere else.

The lake freezes for about four to five months, from early January until May or June. The ice is usually 0.5 to 1.4 m thick and more than 2 m where it piles up into hummocks, and in winter the water beneath can be clear to a depth of 30 to 40 m. For more, see our feature on walking on frozen Baikal in the related reading below.

Abraham Lake, Alberta: frozen methane bubbles

Abraham Lake, on the North Saskatchewan River in western Alberta, is an artificial reservoir created in 1972 when the Bighorn Dam was built. About 32 km long, it is the largest reservoir in the province, and it is named after Silas Abraham, a Stoney Nakoda farmer and hunter.

Plants decaying on the lakebed release methane. As the lake freezes, the rising gas is trapped in layers just below the surface, creating the stacked white discs that photographers travel here to see. The lake usually freezes by late December, and the best time for the bubbles is from mid-January to mid-February. Read more in Abraham Lake’s Ice Bubbles.

Sea ice, frost flowers and McMurdo Sound

Sea ice is a different material from lake ice. The National Snow and Ice Data Center explains that seawater freezes at about −1.8 °C and that sea ice forms in stages, from needle-like frazil crystals to grease ice, thin dark nilas and round pancake ice in rough water. Glaciers and icebergs, by contrast, come from snow that fell on land. When floes collide they pile into ridges, and when they pull apart they open long cracks called leads, like those crossing McMurdo Sound in the Ross Sea.

Frost flowers grow on new, thin sea ice when the air above is still and at least 15 °C colder than the ice. Water vapour rising from the surface condenses into crystals in patches about 3 to 4 cm across. They draw up brine from the ice, so they can be about three times saltier than seawater, and scientists study them as a possible source of sea-salt particles in polar air.

Frozen ponds in Japan, Switzerland and Oregon

Small ponds produce some of the most abstract patterns. In Japan, bare tree trunks standing in a blue-green pond repeat across the surface. In Switzerland and southern Oregon, thin ice breaks into geometric shapes in shallow water.

The Great Lakes, Wisconsin and Poland

Big lakes freeze in their own way. The gallery visits Lake Michigan at Chicago, Lake Erie at Marblehead, Ohio, Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin, and Lake Kryspinów near Kraków, Poland. As NSIDC notes, lake ice usually freezes as a smooth layer, while sea ice is broken into many shapes by the turbulence of the ocean. Enjoy them from the shore unless local authorities have checked the ice and opened it to the public.

For clear ice in the mountains, watch the High Tatras video. For half-frozen waves, see Jonathan Nimerfroh’s Nantucket photographs, and for ice built by freezing fog, Marko Korošec’s rime-ice photographs from Slovenia.

Related reading

• Thirty Frozen Scenes: Ice on Buildings, Water, Plants and Everyday Objects
• 24 Ice and Snow Formations: From Frozen Bubbles to Lake Michigan Lighthouses
• Abraham Lake’s Ice Bubbles: Layers beneath the Surface
• Angela Kelly’s Frozen Bubbles: Ice Crystals, Reflections and Fragile Forms
• Jonathan Nimerfroh’s Slushy Waves on Nantucket
• Ten Snow, Ice and Water Landscapes: Glaciers, Mountains and Frozen Shores
• Walking on frozen Lake Baikal

Sources