In a rare environmental phenomenon, thousands of "glaciers" have spread to a beach on the Finnish island of Hailuto in the northernmost Baltic Gulf of Bothnia, where experts say small chunks of ice have been driven by the wind and become oval.
The photographer, Risto Matilla, was walking along with his wife on Sunday at Marghanemi on Hailoto Island, where they encountered glaciers covering an area of 30 meters wide.
"The size of the majority of these balls was about the size of a football, and there were smaller and bigger balls with a diameter of about 100 centimeters," the paper quoted Matilla as saying. "It was a great sight, I've never seen such a phenomenon." Pictures of this environmental phenomenon, which experts say occur only under extremely exceptional circumstances.
"Glacial eggs" are not common, but they can occur once a year under certain climatic conditions, said Johnny Vanio, an ice scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
To form these glaciers, he said, air must be available at temperatures below zero, freezing water, a shallow sandy beach, a slope and quiet waves.
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