Ice eggs, also known as ice balls, are a rare phenomenon caused by a process in which small pieces of
sea ice in open water are rolled over by wind and currents in freezing conditions and grow into
spheroid pieces of ice. They sometimes collect into heaps of balls on beaches where they pack together in striking patterns. The gentle churn of water, blown by a suitably stiff breeze makes concentric layers of ice form on a seed particle that then grows into the floating ball as it rolls through the freezing currents. This ice-egg formation formed in 2014 on Stroomi Beach in
Tallinn, Estonia. The temperature was around between
–20 and
–15 degrees Celsius and the diameter of each ball was around 5–10 cm.
Photograph credit: Aleksandr Abrosimov