Frazilled

[muckefuck]

Just as we can't be assured of a constant power supply up here in the wild north, we can't depend on a consistent supply of fresh water either. This morning, we were informed of a request on behalf of the municipal authorities to reduce our water consumption, followed by an explanatory e-mail which contained this paragraph:

The Water Treatment Facility is experiencing a problem with the formation of frazil / anchor ice on the intake pipelines in Lake Michigan. The formation of anchor ice is limiting the amount of water that can be drawn from the Lake into the treatment plant. As a result, there is decreased water flow into the community.

"Frazil"? You know I love a new word, so I first turned to Wikipedia for an explanation:

Frazil ice is a collection of loose, randomly oriented needle-shaped ice crystals in water. It resembles slush and has the appearance of being slightly oily when seen on the surface of water. It sporadically forms in open, turbulent, supercooled water, which means that it usually forms in rivers, lakes and oceans, on clear nights when the weather is colder, and air temperature reaches –6°C or lower. Frazil ice is the first stage in the formation of sea ice.

Later on, the article states that what makes it troublesome is that "due to frazil ice’s ineffective buoyancy, it can be carried to the bottom very easily". Thus the designation "anchor ice" for frazil which has begun to adhere. So pipes that are normally located far below the lowest depths of surface-ice formation are still susceptible to being clogged by frazil.

It would've been fun to make this into an extremely obscure Word of the Day, but of course tracking down translations for such a specialised technical term is difficult at best. A little more Googling turns up this bit from the dusty old EB:

Besides ground-ice and anchor-ice this formation is called also bottom-ice, ground-gru and lappered ice, the two last names being Scottish. In France it is called glace du fond, in Germany Grundeis, and in French Canada moutonne from the appearance of sheep at rest, since the ice formed at the bottom grows in woolly, spongy masses upon boulders or other projections.

Dutch equivalents include grondijs and ankerijs. Corresponding to the French is Spanish hielo de fondo and Catalan *gel de fons, but I can't find any attestations of the latter.

But although frazil also becomes anchored, it's not precisely the same thing as anchor ice. Focal.ie, to my amazement comes through with not only oighear grinnill "ground ice" but also snáthaidí oighir "frazil ice" (lit. "ice needles"). Searching for a Chinese translation of "frazil" turns up an embarrassment of options--片冰, 屑冰, 結冰, 潜冰, 冰片, 冰針, and more. Of these, 結冰 jiébīng would correspond to 결빙, which is what my most reliable online Korean dictionaries give.

Oh, and despite the cutesy title of this post, "frazil" actually rhymes with "hazel". The OED, which gives the Montreal Gazette as the source for the first attested citation, speculates that it is "a Canadian use of F. fraisil, coal-dust, cinders".)

Comments

[richardthinks.livejournal.com]

this is the stuff that Antarctic fish and shrimps regularly get trapped inside: I understand it can form very, very quickly under the right circumstances (IIRC especially in supercold water of high salinity, although my memory is failing, here - I was thinking of using it in a game, OUAT).

Love to see .jpg pictures of frazil ice.

[geargail.livejournal.com]

Just seeing it... is so worth 1,000 words.

Interesting subject at least - inspiring.

T.G.

[thedeli.livejournal.com]

Possibly not obscure enough for these guys, but that didn't stop me from checking.

I'm a little surprised that the (anglophone) Gazette is listed as citation. That must not happen very often.

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about the ice and the water intake today while on the bus.

I also wondered whether Lake Michigan has ever frozen over. This article says it came close in 1979. It'll be interesting to see if it does this year.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you mention Grundeis; I know this word only from the idiom mit dem Arsch auf Grundeis gehen "to be very afraid" (LEO discussions here, here, and here), and never wondered what (if anything) the word meant in isolation.

[gorkabear.livejournal.com]

I was with my friend Imma and she said there is a word for that in Catalan.
We're investigating