Scientists made an important discovery regarding ice that resembles stands of hair when it breaks through the cracks of rotted tree branches.
According to Live Science, authors of a study published in the journal Biogeosciences found the strands of ice actually grow because of a fungus that thrives in the cold. "Hair ice" was first identified in 1918 and scientists have not been able to definitively explain it since.
"When we saw hair ice for the first time on a forest walk, we were surprised by its beauty," study co-author Christian Mätzler, from the Institute of Applied Physics at the University of Bern in Switzerland, said in a press release. "Sparked by curiosity, we started investigating this phenomenon, at first using simple tests, such as letting hair ice melt in our hands until it melted completely."
Through experimenting, the researchers found the fungus helped the hair ice keep its shape, which could be as thin as 0.01 millimeters.
"Since the freezing front is situated at the mouth of the wood rays, the shape of the growing ice is determined by the wood rays at their mouth," Mätzler said. "The same amount of ice is produced on wood with or without fungal activity, but without this activity the ice forms a crust-like structure. The action of the fungus is to enable the ice to form thin hairs - with a diameter of about 0.01 mm - and to keep this shape over many hours at temperatures close to 0°C. Our hypothesis includes that the hairs are stabilized by a recrystallization inhibitor that is provided by the fungus."
