[meteorite-list] Holes in ice

[Gary K. Foote]

VERY interesting Darren.  I've emailed the reporter and sent him to the URL for my search 
in a melt-hole.  I'll also be contacting Mr. Ives for his opinion too.  But the 
conditions we saw at our hunt site are exactly as stated in the article, a small man-made 
pond with steep sides - in fact very steep sides.  Surface of the pond well below the 
local water table.  Sounds like we MAY have an answer.  

Thanks for posting this.

Gary

On 1 Mar 2007 at 10:14, Darren Garrison wrote:


> http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070228/COLUMNISTS03/202280381/-1/columnists

> 

> Do holes in ice create holes in space theory? 

> 

> Published: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 

> 

> In January 2001, Susan Taylor, a research scientist at the Army Corps of

> Engineer´s Cold Regions Research Laboratory in Hanover, visited Frost Pond in

> Dublin to investigate a mysterious hole in the ice.

> 

> Local residents asked her to come because her work on snowpack research includes

> going to the South Pole to collect micro-meteorites - and they wondered whether

> the 3-foot-wide gap had been caused by incoming space debris.

> 

> Her verdict, at the time, as I reported it: Maybe.

> 

> Her verdict now, as I found when checking in again: Maybe not.

> 

> "Since then . . . I´ve heard of many more of these (mysterious holes in frozen

> ponds)," Taylor said in a phone interview last week. "I think it´s some natural

> phenomenon, but I have no idea how they´re formed."

> 

> Frequency casts doubt on the meteorite theory, Taylor said, because not many

> softball-size rocks make it through the atmosphere without burning up.

> 

> You may wonder why I´m bringing up a 5-year-old story.

> 

> Because another of those mysterious holes appeared Sunday, Feb. 18, in a small

> pond on Curtis Brook Road in Wilton.

> 

> "It´s very curious indeed - there just aren´t any tracks around it," said Nikki

> Andrews, who with her husband, David, have owned the property for nine years.

> 

> By the time they spotted the foot-wide hole it had begun to freeze over, but as

> you can see from the photo taken by a neighbor, it was still plainly visible.

> Also visible were the lack of animal and human footprints nearby - no beaver or

> ice-fishing fan made this hole - as well as odd "splash marks" that stretch out

> in several directions.

> 

> Andrews said the splash marks made "slight furrows" in the snow, leading them to

> guess that something had crashed through the ice from above.

> 

> "They´re definitely on top, and that´s what really surprised me," she said.

> 

> I got all excited about meteorite possibilities when the Andrewses first

> contacted Telegraph correspondent Jessie Salisbury, who contacted me, until

> Taylor squelched that idea.

> 

> A little Net searching found similar stories about mystery ice holes here and

> there, occasionally with real meteorites confirmed but mostly full of uninformed

> speculation (which is what we reporters do best).

> 

> I couldn´t figure out who else would have expertise: hydrologists?

> meteorologists? New Hampshire Fish & Game? The New Hampshire Mutual UFO Network

> (maybe space aliens are abducting brook trout)?

> 

> I finally fell back on the non-Internet world´s version of Web searching -

> flipping randomly through my Rolodex - and wound up talking with Wayne Ives of

> the state Department of Environmental Services´ Instream Flow Program.

> 

> Ives has spent years splashing around the Souhegan and Lamprey rivers as part of

> a project to set standards on river usage, which is how I met him, so he knows

> New Hampshire waters in winter. He was intrigued and puzzled, so I e-mailed him

> a copy of the Andrewses´ photo.

> 

> That´s when (pun alert) he threw cold water on my meteorite hopes: "That looks

> to me like a melt hole," he said.

> 

> As Ives explained it, above-freezing water flowing into a small pond can move in

> funny ways and congregate, raising the surface temperature enough to melt ice.

> Evidence in favor of this idea is the small size of the pond, which was man-made

> a couple of decades ago, and the fact that some of its banks are steep.

> 

> "I have seen it on small lakes - especially where the banks are high around it

> to get a good gradient from the shore - the possibility of a lot of groundwater

> coming in. In a shallow environment like that, it could overwhelm the system,"

> he said.

> 

> Our weird winter contributes to the possibility, said Dr. Stephen Daly of the

> Cold Regions lab.

> 

> "It was incredibly warm right up through the second week of January, with a lot

> of rain, so I think the groundwater levels got really, really high for winter .

> . .. An upwelling of groundwater could do this," he said. "The water table

> around the pond might be higher than the water surface on the pond."

> 

> This doesn´t explain splash marks, however. Here´s all I can think of: they´re

> actually signs of more melting from below. The warmer water could have oozed

> along cracks under the ice, partially melting the snow above those cracks from

> underneath in a way that looks like they were melted from above.

> 

> The Andrewses allowed a neighbor to bore a few auger holes in the ice and poke

> around in the mud at the bottom (five feet down) with a stick. Alas, no

> meteorite was found, but I haven´t given up hope.

> 

> The neighbor measured the ice at the hole and found it to be 6 inches thick,

> which seems a lot to be melted.

> 

> I think more investigation in needed. I wonder if The Telegraph will let me rent

> a miniature submarine? 

> 

> 

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