Photos recently circulated on social media caught hundreds of smooth balls of ice rolled ashore on a beach in Finland and piled up like a gigantic clutch of turtles' eggs, thanks to a peculiar combination of weather and waves.
"The temperature hovered around 32 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 1 degree Celsius) that day, and the wind whipped across the beach," he said. "There, we found this amazing phenomenon. There was snow and ice eggs along the beach near the water line," he told the BBC.
He noted that the area upon which the "ice eggs" were extended is about one-quarter of a football field and ranged in size from that of an average chicken egg to that of a hefty soccer ball.
He snapped a photo, noting that he had "never seen anything like this during 25 years living in the vicinity."
BBC Weather expert George Goodfellow said that chunks of ice break off from larger ice sheets in the sea and either taxi to shore on the incoming tide or get pushed in by gusts of wind at the water's surface. "Waves buffet the ice chunks as they travel, slowly eroding their jagged edges into smooth curves. Seawater sticks and freezes to the forming eggs, causing them to grow like snowballs do as they roll across the ground."
He added that once the ice chunks reach shore, pounding waves tend to buff out any lingering kinks on their surfaces, leaving behind nothing but sleek and shiny "eggs" for curious tourists to happen upon.
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