Fractal half-freezing phenomenon

[JJRousseau]

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Hello, this is a bit of de-stressor for current applicants waiting to hear back, but mostly I'm curious about responses from this community.

I was riding Amtrak back from a medical school interview in the northeast and I noticed in a frozen pond that points in the water (well, ice) with tree branches rising out of them had frozen only on the surface, where the ice was translucent as opposed to solid white. Now I suspect that the living tree, even in hibernation, produced enough heat to delay the freezing immediately surrounding the branching. However, what is wild is that the shallow translucent ice radiated out in three or four shallow freeze branches from the less frozen translucent space around each tree branch and these branched off in a blatantly fractal pattern. And these branches stretched several feet from the tree before the further fractal branches came off. For one the shapes in the mini frozen landscape was aesthetically pleasing, but what I really want to understand is the theory behind this phenomenon. Are these freeze patterns well characterised? Why do they arise? Can we deterministically predict their shape based on initial contentions of outside temperature, water depth, and tree branch diameter? Anyone who could illuminate anything about this phenomenon of fractal freezing or point to references that accomplish this would have my greatest appreciation.

Cheers.

 

[efle]

One time I made mini Popsicles by freezing toothpicks into OJ in a cube tray

 

[Lucca]

Pix? Not really sure what you are talking about.

 

[Lawpy]

Hello, this is a bit of de-stressor for current applicants waiting to hear back, but mostly I'm curious about responses from this community.

I was riding Amtrak back from a medical school interview in the northeast and I noticed in a frozen pond that points in the water (well, ice) with tree branches rising out of them had frozen only on the surface, where the ice was translucent as opposed to solid white. Now I suspect that the living tree, even in hibernation, produced enough heat to delay the freezing immediately surrounding the branching. However, what is wild is that the shallow translucent ice radiated out in three or four shallow freeze branches from the less frozen translucent space around each tree branch and these branched off in a blatantly fractal pattern. And these branches stretched several feet from the tree before the further fractal branches came off. For one the shapes in the mini frozen landscape was aesthetically pleasing, but what I really want to understand is the theory behind this phenomenon. Are these freeze patterns well characterised? Why do they arise? Can we deterministically predict their shape based on initial contentions of outside temperature, water depth, and tree branch diameter? Anyone who could illuminate anything about this phenomenon of fractal freezing or point to references that accomplish this would have my greatest appreciation.

Cheers.

this read like a CARS/verbal passage for me.

 

[JJRousseau]

Like this but with a small branch sticking up in the center of each one.

 

[JJRousseau]

Also, contentions should be conditions in my original post - embarrassing.

 

[freak7]

Also, contentions should be conditions in my original post - embarrassing.

Just edit it(?)

 

[efle]

Like this but with a small branch sticking up in the center of each one.

I'm actually more confused now, isn't this in inverse of what you're describing? This looks like liquid negative space while you were describing dendritic freezing where the ice was brancing out into liquid?