{"id":573842,"date":"2026-08-03T20:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T20:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/573842\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T20:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T20:44:09","slug":"as-it-touches-the-seafloor-it-kills-whatever-living-thing-it-contacts-by-encasing-it-in-a-tomb-of-ice-discover-the-finger-of-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/573842\/","title":{"rendered":"“As it touches the seafloor, it kills whatever living thing it contacts by encasing it in a tomb of ice\u2026” Discover the finger of death"},"content":{"rendered":"

As if surviving the\u00a0freezing waters<\/a>\u00a0of the polar regions isn\u2019t hard enough, some marine animals face a terrifying salty underwater stalactite skulking slowly towards them. Those that don\u2019t or can\u2019t move away in time \u2013 like slow-moving\u00a0starfish<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0urchins<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 freeze to death in its clutches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These lethal ice tubes are known as brinicles, shortened from brine icicles because they are icicles made of brine (very salty water).\u00a0<\/p>\n

They form because the air is desperately cold compared to the mildly chilly seawater.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Above the surface, temperatures can dip as low as -40\u00b0C but the ocean water hovers at around -2\u00b0C. This causes the seawater under floating sea ice to start freezing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The formation of this ice pushes out any salt particles, which flow into the surrounding seawater to create an extra salty liquid called brine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This additional salt makes the water denser than normal seawater, making the brine sink down through the water column. Brine needs colder temperatures to freeze. But, as it touches the seawater around it, this frigid liquid starts to freeze the water on its outer edge, creating an eerie hollow cylinder with brine flowing inside.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Starting at the surface, brinicles creep like a snail downwards through the water creating a frozen trail behind them. When it reaches the seafloor, it can trap the animals it encounters and freeze them to death. That\u2019s why some call it the \u2018finger of death\u2019,\u00a0<\/p>\n

Slowly, this perilous pipe sinks further and further until it hits the seafloor. \u201cWhen it does, the treachery begins,\u201d writes the\u00a0California Academy of Sciences<\/a>\u2019 Michael Bartalos in his blog\u00a0The Long View. \u201cAs the extra cold brine spreads over the seabed, it forms a web of ice, trapping everything in its path.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scientists have been aware of these slow-mo death traps for\u00a0several decades<\/a>\u00a0but their formation was only filmed for the first time in\u00a02011<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The BBC\u00a0Frozen Planet\u00a0footage<\/a>\u00a0shows the ghost-like phenomenon inching its lethal fingers downwards until it reaches the seabed. \u201cAs it touches the seafloor, it kills whatever living thing it contacts by encasing it in a tomb of ice,\u201d says David Attenborough in the show\u2019s narration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sea stars scurry around the brinicle with some, horrifyingly, even unwittingly scampering towards it, only to meet their death in its icy grasp. In one haunting frame, a perished sea star reaches its arm above the frozen ice, as if in one last, desperate attempt to escape its fate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

eliDespite being a bringer-of-death for many creatures, some scientists believe these strange \u2018sea stalactites\u2019 have the right conditions for life on Earth to begin. \u201cLike hydrothermal vents, brinicles have high concentrations of chemical compounds, electric potentials that may help jump-start life,\u201d writes Bartalos.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As if surviving the\u00a0freezing waters\u00a0of the polar regions isn\u2019t hard enough, some marine animals face a terrifying salty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-573842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}