# video | Why do lakes form in the form of soccer balls on the lakes?

Our planet often surprises us with unusualnatural phenomena. For example, in 2017, a group of people from the Facebook social network shared photos and videos with a bright purple-green ribbon of light slowly floating across the sky, which scientists could not even find an explanation for at that time. Recently, the inhabitants of Finland had a chance to see another unusual natural phenomenon - on the shore of the lake many large ice floes in the form of soccer balls formed. As it turned out, they are sometimes formed in various parts of the planet, but this requires special weather conditions.

Photo taken by photographer Risto Mattila

Frozen Balloon Coast of BothnichA gulf in the Finnish city of Oulu was noticed by an amateur photographer named Risto Mattila. A piece of sand about 30 meters long was covered with many frozen spheres, the size of which varied from the diameter of golf balls to the circumference of soccer balls. The photographer posted pictures of an unusual natural phenomenon on his Instagram and it turned out that not many people manage to see these ice balls.

I was at Maryaniemi Beach with my wife. The weather was sunny, about -1 Celsius, and it was a very windy day, ”Risto Matilla told the BBC News.

How are ice balls formed?

About how unusual ice floes form roundforms, told glaciologists - scientists studying the natural ice of our planet in its most diverse manifestations. According to them, such ice forms are able to form only in close to ideal meteorological conditions. The weather should be neither too warm nor too cold. The wind should not be very strong, but should not be completely absent. Also, small objects like sand particles should float in the water.

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Under such conditions, the water temperature remainscold enough and under the influence of a light breeze it envelops tiny grains of sand. At the same time, an ice crust forms on the surface, which is almost immediately covered by another layer. This continues until many ice balls form on the shore. You can see exactly how the above process occurs in the video below.

Ice balls with icicles formed on them

A beautiful phenomenon, isn't it? Only because of the careless attitude to the purity of our planet and the large number of greenhouse emissions, the temperature on Earth began to skyrocket. Subsequently, glaciers began to melt rapidly in the polar regions of the planet. To find out how our planet will look without ice, I recommend watching a video from our special material.