Thursday, January 9, 2014

Ravine Ice

The commuter O-Train passes through a rock cut in Little Italy, stopping at one station here. Groundwater from above flows down the slopes and among the rocks, and it freezes up in the winter, creating dramatic ice formations on the walls of the rock cut.


The ravine doesn't get a whole lot of sun during any given day, so these ice formations will take their time in the spring finally melting away.


25 comments:

  1. Amazing ice formations but the ground water doesn't make the hillside unstable ?

    cheers, parsnip

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  2. So that's where all our moisture went!

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  3. oh it looks SO COLD down there! beautiful though!

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  4. As cold and slippery as ice is, it does look beautiful.

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  5. @Parsnip: if it were a softer stone, maybe, but that's Canadian Shield rock. Very tough and enduring.

    @Tamera: feels cold, doesn't it?

    @Stuart: that's a way I hadn't thought of it!

    @Revrunner: apparently so!

    @Tanya: thank you!

    @Norma: get used to it!

    @Carla: plenty more ice and snow to come!

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  6. Oh I bet you can see all kinds of shapes and forms along here.

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  7. I can look at these without getting cold since our temps are in the fifties right now! Glad I'm not in a world of snow and ice, lovely as it might be!

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  8. Brr! I can feel the chill here, it was -15 the other night! (Well, perhaps that is pretty warm by Ottawa standards:). Lovely, lovely formations! P.S. True, cats really are the planets ultimate life form.

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  9. It could be June before the ice melts this year although they say it will be warm on Saturday!

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  10. @Sharon: and it varies from year to year!

    @Krisztina: it is!

    @Cheryl: the deep south needs a proper winter!

    @Chrissy: thank you!

    @LondonLulu: well, on the fahrenheit scale we can get down there from time to time...

    @Inna: thank you!

    @Norma: snow is good for you!

    @RedPat: any chance we can keep the polar vortex in place?

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  11. Cool. The images are really so amazing.

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  12. You win. Way colder, way more snow and ice. But you're Canada, eh? We're down in the mud belt.

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  13. I bet those icicles are hard on the concrete.

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  14. Amazing! I wonder how long will it last...

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  15. Nice to get a good view while traveling bybtrain. Nothing like that here on the VA eastern shore, but do recall similar scenes from when we lived in NJ.

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  16. @Eve: thank you!

    @Lady Lilith: thanks!

    @Bob: it does get pretty cold here!

    @Hamilton: it reminds me of rock cuts in Algonquin, where that happens a lot.

    @EG: where the actual station is, there is poured concrete against the wall of the rock cut, and you can see what water and ice do to it over time.

    @JM: well into April! I'll keep an eye on it!

    @Beatrice: it's very common to see that sort of thing on Canadian Shield rock.

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