Needle Ice at West Thumb Geyser Basin
When I was at West Thumb Geyser Basin not long ago, I noticed strands of frost rising a couple of inches from the ground in many spots. I soon found myself kneeling on the boardwalk to get some closer photos and to really look at this. I remembered reading about frost flowers before and figured this might be something similar. My curiosity was triggered.
What might cause this? Right before I visited was when the first good snows had come and melted off, so there was quite a bit of moisture in the ground. Add to that a bit of heat from the thermal energy and maybe these happen regularly and I’ve just not noticed them on frosty days.
This is what keeping a nature journal is all about. You notice something and it pulls you in to learn more.
So you take notes, photos and/or sketches and put it down to come back to. You don’t need all the answers, just the curiosity. It’s easy enough to bring this curiosity back home with you to do some digging on the internet or reference books.
Keeping a nature journal (or phenology notebook) and exploring what triggers your curiosity is not only far more interesting than anything on a screen, but if you have kids, you’ll model how to do this and most likely draw them into the world of being a lifelong learner. I know my parents shared their passion for learning more with me by sharing what triggered their curiosity.
So back to the frost. As I was working on processing photos yesterday, I hit on these and remembered to do some digging. Here are some links from the quick searches I’ve done. I also have a few of my dad’s books on snow and ice that I need to dig through.
- Snow Crystals
- Needle Ice
- How the frozen ground affect the land (needle ice, rock glaciers, etc)
Yet another rabbit hole to go down. The first link has instructions on how to create frost in a shed. Lots of rabbit holes to go down.
