Ice Circles?

[pamela]

I believe the circles are naturally occuring. Broken pieces of ice caught in some sort of a whirlpool. I believe it was Craig's post that made a lot to sense on the subject. As far as the words for snow, who do you mean by "we"? all peoples? The Inuit have a large number of words but it breaks down into a more definitive way, such as drifting snow, or falling snow,snowflake, etc

[stereologist]

I would vote for a natural phenomena. I think the ice shavings seen around the disc are just part of the process of cutting off ice forming on the edge of the disc. What I find so interesting is that the conditions have to be just right to freeze the surface, but not freeze so quickly that the disc connects to the surrounding ice.

[freeztar]

I would vote for a natural phenomena. I think the ice shavings seen around the disc are just part of the process of cutting off ice forming on the edge of the disc. What I find so interesting is that the conditions have to be just right to freeze the surface, but not freeze so quickly that the disc connects to the surrounding ice.

 

I agree. Also, as Pam pointed out, I would think that an eddy (whirlpool) is a necessity.

[carlton-temple]

I think there can be little doubt that "ice-circles" are naturally occurring phenomena, if rather rare, which is a pity. Imagine if they were caused by little green people, we could start a new scientific discipline : exoanthropology ! ;)