Nature & Environment

Spinning 50ft disk of ice filmed in Russia

By T.K. Randall
May 9, 2016 ·  14 comments

Ice disks occur only in some of the world's coldest regions. Image Credit: CC BY 1.0 Julian Colton Situated in the otherwise calm waters of a semi-frozen river, disks like this one have also been reported on occasion in places like Canada and Scandinavia.

They tend to occur in the outer bends of a river where the acceleration of the water creates a force known as 'rotational shear' which breaks off some of the ice and causes it to start spinning.While rare, it is possible for these ice disks to reach up to 50ft in diameter.

Huge disk of ice spins unaided in freezing Russian waters https://t.co/Xf71efifNW pic.twitter.com/VQxgaq9nLa

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) May 6, 2016

Source: Mail Online | Comments (14)

Tags: Ice Disk, Russia