Featured Image Credit: BBC
Did you know a deadly phenomenon takes place in the waters of the Arctic Ocean that proves fatal to everything that gets caught in its path?
Covering a whopping 14.06 million km² area, the Arctic Ocean is categorized as the smallest of the world’s five oceanic divisions but still plays host to a great, thriving marine ecosystem.
Below the surface of the rippling waters, explorers may come across spectacular coral reefs, Greenland Sharks that live up to 400 years and Narwhals — sometimes dubbed the ‘Unicorns of the Sea’.
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Meanwhile, previously captured footage has documented less mobile creatures such as starfish and anemones also residing under the sea ice.
Unfortunately, not only do these deep sea dwellers have to fend off predators, but from time to time they meet their fate due to being caught up in an ‘ice finger of death’.
This so-called icy finger is more commonly referred to by scientists as a brinicle or a brine icicle.
As seawater freezes, impurities like salt brine concentrates are expelled, thus creating a downward flow of saline water.
It’s understood that this brine is heavier and colder than the water around it, thus beginning to sink into the ocean at a rapid pace.
As the brine barrels further down, it continues to pull in frozen water around it, creating a thick, descending column of ice
Sometimes these channels can hit the sea floor and its icy tendrils will continue to spread out and freeze anything in its path.
It’s understood brinicles can grow up to several metres per day, with a study in the Journal of Glaciology previously recording one icy finger expanding to six metres.
While reports on this icy finger stretch back to the 1960s, it wasn’t until 2011 that the method was caught on film.
The footage was shown in the BBC’s Blue Planet II series, narrated by British broadcaster Sir David Attenborough and repurposed for 2016’s Earth’s Great Seasons.
Exploring the brinicle in the latter BBC docuseries, actor Andrew Scott described it as a ‘stealthy finger of death’.
“A river of ice imprisons everything in its path. Even those that think they’ve beaten the extremes of winter can get caught out.”
After watching the chilling footage, one YouTube user wrote: “That is the most sinister-looking piece of ice I have ever seen.”
A second commented: “The way that ice tornado came in sending the animals scrambling for their lives was superbly captured. Shows the same world of fear and survival like our own even if it’s on a much slower timescale to ours.”
“This looked like a scene from a sci-fi/horror film. High praise for the people who filmed this awesome, and slightly horrific, video,” said someone else.
As time goes on, scientists are set to learn more about the icy ‘fingers of death’ but for now, I’m sure we can all agree they seem absolutely petrifying.
