4K Drone Footage of a Giant Spinning Circle of Ice in a River

Bulldog Aerials founder Todd McKee shot this amazing 4K drone footage of a giant perfect circle of spinning ice that appeared in the middle of a Maine river.

“Mother Nature created this perfect circle in the Presumpscot River in Westbrook, Maine,” writes McKee, a former associate director at ABC News. “It is about 100 yards wide and slowly rotates counter-clockwise.”

This natural phenomenon is known as an ice disc or ice circle, and it’s found in slow moving water in cold environments.

“Ice circles are thin and circular slabs of ice that rotate slowly in the water,” Wikipedia says. “It is believed that they form in eddy currents. It has been shown that existing ice discs can maintain their rotation due to melting.

“Ice discs form on the outer bends in a river where the accelerating water creates a force called ‘rotational shear’, which breaks off a chunk of ice and twists it around. As the disc rotates, it grinds against surrounding ice — smoothing into a circle.”

(via Bulldog Media Of Maine via Laughing Squid)