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? > > > ______________________________________________ > Meteorite-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list > ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
