Cascading Ice Waterfalls of Antietam Lake - January 9th 2018

The beautiful @kelsnm gets caught in a candid taking pictures herself of these wonderfully cascading ice waterfalls.

It is such a cool thought, the processes of geology involved in the formation of these beautiful structures of nature. Snow-melt and rain water from the hilltop above seeps down into the ground above and eventually diffuses through the earth and rock all the way down and out at lower altitudes, moving in a somewhat bowl pattern as depicted in the image below..

Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=groundwater+drainage+off+of+mountain&client=firefox-b-1-ab&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiil_i08c3YAhVCuFMKHUmlBtAQ_AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=674#imgrc=T9htZXJUWW8IhM:

And of course, the water that moves closer to exiting the rock strata during winter can freeze before exiting completely and can split the rocks via a process called "jointing". Where water slowly can seep into rocks, (certain rocks can absorb water due to pore size/ grain size) and end up splitting the rock when it freezes due to the expansion of water's volume when it freezes. Over time, this is how entire mountainsides can crumble. Vegetation can also cause weathering to the rock strata, but in my examples below, the main weathering process which leads to erosion is by freezing groundwater.

Thats how the crumbly cliff walls are shaped, but the icicles themselves are an almost self generating structure. When the water emerges from the ground and begins to form the initial icicle, it quickly becomes a "snowball effect" if the temperatures remain below freezing, and we have had temps waaaayyy below frezing for weeks now. But Y'all knew that.

Evidence of weathering right before our eyes!

Looking down off the dam to the frozen Antietam Lake below.

Photos above shot with an iPhone SE.

This photo was shot with my Mavic Pro.