Ice finger of death!

The Antarctic hides many dangers. Right now, an icy tube of water is forming underwater fast enough that it can be seen forming with the human eye. This tube can elongate and become several meters in length. When it reaches the seabed it extends tendrils freezing everything in its grasp. It is called the icicle of death or named brinicle by scientists. The brinicle was first described in 1960s but was caught on camera for the first time by the BBC using new technology called timelapse. This occurs both in northern and southern seas. Here is how it is formed.  Like all other bodies of water, only the surface of the water freezes forming a thick sheet of ice. But the salt in the water does not freeze and accumulate in several small spaces inside the icy sheet. The salty mixture, the brine, seeps to the underwater through cracks in the ice.  Since brine is denser than water and freezes at lower temperature than water, the brine sinks and freezes the water that it comes in contact with, forming an underwater tube. With time, the tube becomes thicker and longer until it reach the seafloor. When it hits the seabed, an icy web spreads its tendrils across the floor.  The organisms living there will be frozen in their places mainly seas stars and urchins and fish that are too slow to escape it.  The brinicles have left hundreds of aquatic skeletons. Dr. Thurber, one of the scientists that saw the brinicles growing, described them: “They look like upside-down cacti that are blown from glass,” he says, “like something from Dr. Suess’s imagination. They’re incredibly delicate and can break with on the slightest touch.”

Check the video below:


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2065401/Brinicle-forms-beneath-sea-kills-path.html
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/05/swimming-beneath-the-brinicles-in-antarctica/