Reflections from Ice Surfaces in Pans    

Dr. James R. Carter, Professor Emeritus

Geography-Geology Department

Illinois State University, Normal IL 61790-4400

My concern has been to grow and photograph Ice Flowers.  In trying to understand the behavior of ice I put water in bottle caps and pans looking for things like Ice Spikes.  I noticed irregularities in the surface of ice forming in pans and took photos of those irregular surfaces.  When I zoomed in on my photos, I found some interesting patterns.   Below are images of the surfaces of freezing water in black pans.  The pans once held take-away food.

In these images the surface is not yet solid ice.  Thus, we are seeing a mix of ice and water.  And we see that ice does not form a smooth, continuous film on the water.  While in liquid form the small patches of water will have waves and ripples, creating some of these patterns. 

Fig. 1 - Note the blue and gold colors on the surface.  I set these pans on a railing on the south side of my house.  The walls of the house are a tan, which tends to reflect as gold on the water/ice surface.  The blue comes from the sky because most of these photos were taken on cold days when the sky was particularly clear and thus distinctly blue, soon after a strong cold front has passed through.

I need to note that I have a pergola with horizontal beams running parallel to each other and perpendicular to the side of the house.  These beams cast shadows which appear as dark lines on top of the reflections.  In many cases these parallel shadows add to the texture of the images.  In the photo above you can see sunny areas and shadows above the pan.

Note that I did not set up conditions to get any special effects.  These photos show what nature presented me, when zoomed in.  I have not changed any of the colors in the photographs other than to click 'auto adjust colors' in my image processing software.  That action in some cases does brighten some colors and adds contrast.  Note that auto adjusting is based on the colors in the image, so in a cropped image with little black the result may be quite different than in an image with the pan rim and outside areas. 

Enjoy. 

Fig. 2 - The photo on the left shows the entire pan surface with the parallel black lines on the lower half of the pan.  The right photo focuses on the tan patch at the top of the pan.

Those images varied greatly from hour to hour and by small variations in where the camera was relative to the light sources and angle with respect to the ice.

Fig. 3 - The photo above shows stronger contrasts between the tan, blue and black and many intricate wiggles and lines.  In the zoomed image on the right, we see a triangular wedge of ice on the upper left, a straight ridge of gold and many strange wiggles.  The triangular wedge stood over a cm high, about 1/2 inch.  I find the curly figures very fascinating because you do not see them with the naked eye.

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Fig. 4 - In the example above there are many little curly things but none of the linear features in the previous photograph. It is difficult to locate the image on the right in the smaller scale image on the left, but it came from there.

Fig. 5 - Here there is no gold.  I do not remember the conditions when I observed this reflection.  I do see the parallel dark lines reflecting shadows of the beams overhead.  Of particular note in this photo are the small patches of green on the right.  I cannot account for the green, but it is there. 

Fig. 6 - This reflection shows the alternating black/white pattern of the beams on a very irregular surface.  This is an interesting pattern of reflections, but I cannot account for the small patch of very bright blue near the center and the almost black area.  Why is there so much white and very little tan, or gold? 

Fig. 7 - This black creature occurred near the edge of the pan.  Where the black came from I do not know.  Looking closely one can see the small curly features observed on other photos but they are gray here.  And, to the right you see black lines on a white patch, reflecting the parallel beams on a curved surface.    

A complement to this page on reflections is the web page on the nature and structure of ice under the surface in the pans.  This is another interesting world, but not as colorful as these images.  

Concluding Statement

This page is one of a number I have on ice in nature.   Ten years ago, I knew about icicles and patches of ice on streets and walkways, and that was about it.  Now I look for ice in nature and set up environments where ice will form.  I take many photos and on occasion find interesting patterns. The photos above were selected from hundreds of photos. 

These photos are a complement to the many photos I have of ice forming on plant stems to form Ice Flowers, on certain stones to form Pebble Ice, on pieces of dead wood with a particular fungus forming Hair Ice and on the surface of some soils forming Needle Ice.     

Thank goodness for the Internet and digital cameras for they let us exchange information about these attractive ice formations.  Please look for interesting ice when the freeze/thaw processes are underway.   For additional perspectives on ice see  http://www.jrcarter.net/ice/radio/

Feel free to contact me at  jrcarter@ilstu.edu   to share your photos of ice of this nature from your outings or freezer experiments.