'Ice Pancakes' Float Down Scottish River - Video
© Photo : Twitter/@SISI_project"Ice pancakes" on the River Bladnoch
© Photo : Twitter/@SISI_project
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The man who filmed the "ice pancakes" admitted that, while he had encountered theh phenomenon before, the "pancakes" he stumbled upon this time were “particularly interesting” due to their perfect shape.
A peculiar phenomenon known as ice pancakes has been spotted recently on the River Bladnoch in Scotland's Galloway region.
A video and several photos uploaded on social media by the Scottish Invasive Species Initiative (SISI) show nearly perfect ice circles floating on the river’s surface.
Callum Sinclair, SISI project manager and the man who captured the phenomenon in question on camera, told one media outlet that, while he has seen “ice pancakes” before, these were “particularly interesting” due to their perfect shape.
Pancake ice usually forms in cold sea water when waves cause pieces of ice to knock against each another, thus rounding their edges.
However, such “pancakes” may also form on rivers as well when frozen foam gets sucked into a swirling current of water known as an eddy.
On a river they are believed to form when foam begins to freeze and is sucked into an eddy. The swirling current creates a circular shape as the frozen discs increase in size and are rubbed against each other. 2/2 @ScottishEPA @BBCSpringwatch @BBCScotland pic.twitter.com/GNtFnsF1da
— Scottish Invasive Species Initiative (@SISI_project) December 13, 2022