Behold - The Icicle Of Death: The Brinicle!

Photo Credits: Gizmodo
- not Aquasimodo, Gizmodo!

Must-see! Time-lapse video captures ‘icicle of death’ reaching Antarctica’s sea floor

Known Yahoo Chase Kell of the Daily Buzz linked (heck, he embedded) a video of this phenomenon to his short article on the subject which was published on Yahoo News this past Thursday, November the 24th, 2011.

The article, unlike the majority of the stuff that Yahoo News routinely "reports" day in day out, got rave reviews because it was, as one commenter so eloquently summarized, "something interesting to watch - finally!"

Only problem was - people would not be able to watch for very long as the video was soon BLOCKED, for the ever-popular reason invoking COPYRIGHT GROUNDS...

Thanks a million, BBC!
And thank you Yahoo, too, for your lack of foresight into these matters which should only be YOUR DOMAIN after all...

Maybe, just maybe, if you're lucky, you may be able to see some of the footage on the website of origin: the BBC's "Frozen Planet" site.

But best of luck with that - most likelier than otherwise, it is not available to watch in your country on copyright grounds too, if you are found to be outside the "Angel Isle" - aka the United Kingdom.

The footage will show you exactly how ALIVE our planet is - if you ever do get to see it, you will be amazed at the results of the work put together by this crew from BBC's 'Frozen Planet' which used time-lapse photography to capture what has been dubbed the "icicle of death," documenting its frosty reach as it blankets life on the sea floor under a sheet of ice. This fascinating phenomenon is caused when ice from above leaves behind a very salty brine, which gradually sinks as it is more dense than the sea water that it encounters progressively.
"As it descends, the sea water around it freezes instantly and forms a sheet of ice - a brinicle - that grows downwards toward the sea floor," explains the video's narrator. "Winter is reaching down from the cold world above." And there is suddenly no escaping from that at all...!

Once this "Icicle of Death" or brinicle has reached the sea floor, a web of ice freezes everything it touches, encasing sea urchins and starfish in a frosty tomb. R.I.P. sea urchins and starfishies.

The BBC footage was taken near Antarctica's Ross Archipelago, under the sheets of ice at Little Razorback Island. Time lapse is the only way to go here, of course, yet shooting this was still a bit of a "race against time" since no one really knew how fast brinicles formed, in truth! The entire process usually takes five to six hours but could have been longer still - or shorter, depending on thermal conditions, really. The bottom line is that Nature has its own agenda (as configured by its Creator, of course) and we should not be interfering with that, certainly not through sheer negligence.

It is so imperative that you get to watch it, too: for it is footage such as this, showing just how impressive the magnificence of God's Creation really is, that can get some people to realize what the hell we are doing to this Creation...!

Eco-minded characters such as Captain Planet, Aquaman, Tintin and so many others will never succeed in this as much as footage like that, not in a million years (and we don't have a million years. Nor does the planet, maybe! But that is another story.) Only material such as this, therefore, footage which makes us realize how stupendous our planet really is, can extirpate such comments out of us as "Nature is always more impressive than anything man can do" - or create.

Uber user known as Topwater (how fitting for aquamusings here...!) said it so beautifully too: "Wow," he exuded, "that's better than any special movie effects I've ever seen. Simply amazing!" Others were deeper (!) and versing downright philosophical, stating that "Nature is amazing and filled with many awesome and mysterious wonders. It's too bad that we unnecessarily destroy so much of it." So terribly true. Yet more proclaimed "Our planet is amazing! Too bad everyone is glued to their computers and cell phones."Or quite simply "wow - yahoo finally did post something worth watching. Very nice." Only it cannot be viewed, really...

:-I