Sep 30, 2021 16:00:00

To elucidate the principle of 'Baikal Zen', a natural phenomenon like a Japanese garden where stones sit on an ice pedestal

The 'phenomenon of a stone on an ice pedestal' that occurs in winter on

Lake Baikal in southeastern Russia is called 'Zen stone' after a Japanese garden. Although it was scientifically unclear why Baikal Zen occurred, researchers succeeded in reproducing Baikal Zen in the lab and disclosed the principle.

Zen stones naturally placed atop pedestals of ice: a phenomenon finally understood | CNRS
http://www.cnrs.fr/en/zen-stones-naturally-placed-atop-pedestals-ice-phenomenon-finally-understood

Physicists may have cracked the case of “Zen” stones balanced on ice pedestals | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/physicists-may-have-cracked-the-case-of-zen-stones-balanced-on-ice-pedestals/

Baikal Zen is as follows. Until now, Baikal Zen has been thought to be 'the stone is heated by sunlight and melts the ice under the stone to form this shape.'

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In a new treatise, Nicolas Taberlet and Nicolas Plihon, physicists at the Center National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), show that the occurrence of Baikal Zen is not due to heat conduction but to sublimation . Sublimation is a phenomenon in which an object changes from a solid to a gas without passing through a liquid.

Researchers say that stones provide a 'shadow' on the underlying ice, preventing sunlight from sublimating the ice directly. On the other hand, since the sublimation rate is high in places away from the stone, sublimation occurs from around the stone, and finally a pedestal is formed. The following is the state of Baikal Zen occurrence reproduced in the laboratory. Click the image to play the movie.

To find out the principle of Baikal Zen, researchers started by testing the heat conduction hypothesis. However, experiments with copper and aluminum discs with different thermal conductivity showed that Baikal Zen was born as well. From here, the researchers concluded that 'heat conduction of stones is not an important factor,' and when they made a sublimation hypothesis and conducted a simulation, the phenomenon was confirmed. It was concluded that the dents that surround the pedestal are due to the increased sublimation rate around the stone due to the effects of far infrared rays.

There are various strange rocks in the world, and their generation principles are different. There is also a phenomenon called 'Glacier tables' that is similar to Baikal Zen, but it is said that glacier tables occur not by sublimation but by melting ice.

The principle of Baikal Zen is thought to be similar to the natural phenomenon called penitente , but penitente also occurs on Pluto, and the effects of sublimation have been confirmed on various stars such as Mars, Pluto, and Ceres. , This research is thought to deepen our understanding of the universe.