Frost quakes

[Dadnatron]

2 days ago, about 10pm, a loud crack/thud sounded just outside the window at which I sat. My wife jumped and asked 展hat was that!? At first, fireworks ran through my mind, as my neighbors tend to celebrate about any and everything via pyrotechnics... but the sound and locations wasn稚 right. Then I thought something big could have fallen over, but we had nothing which could have made that much racket. A quick thought about someone breaking int9 my house and even a gunshot went through my mind.

I walked around outside in the dark and found nothing.

I heard the sound again, but a little further off about 3 hrs later.

Walked around outside the next morning finding nothing amiss

Come to find out... we have been having 吐rost quakes or 田ryoseisms? I致e never heard of them before having grown up in Colorado and Living in the Indianapolis area since 1998, I致e never before ran into nor heard of them. Apparently, with a very sharp and severe temp drop, water laden earth can freeze so quickly that rather than a simple heave... the ground bursts, similar to tree branches, which I致e definitely seen and heard before.

So, in this time of temperature variance... I致e learned about frost quakes...

 

[MossRoad]

Doesn't surprise me. When I'm ice fishing the lake booms all the time from the expanding ice. I could imagine the ground freezing so hard it would have to expand. I know our houses would boom and crack in very cold weather. Haven't ever heard it in this house, but the house I grew up in and my first house both did it fairly often.

 

[MossRoad]

I did hear a tree pop on the shore while I was fishing today. Sounded just like a gunshot.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I went to get the mail on foot a while ago in this cold snap. Around a particular tree, same thing. Loud cracks. I never experienced this before. It kind of freaked me out!

 

[300UGUY]

I’ve heard trees cracking, but not the ground. Never heard of it before.

 

[MossRoad]

I like hearing the lakes make noise while I'm ice fishing. Besides the booming, they also make weird noises as well, like this video I found.

 

[oosik]

My lake booms when it gets real cold - around 20F or colder. There will be a loud "BOOM" - it echos around the vertical rock walls around the lake - followed by loud cracking sounds. It will scare the crap out of me at night especially. Sitting quietly reading a book - "BOOM" - crack, crack.

In the day time the big cracks form in the ice and you can see ice chips fly in the air as the crack races down or across the lake.

As the lake ice gets thicker it also expands. It undercuts the vertical rock walls. Six to ten inches below the lake level the rock wall can be undercut as much as half a foot.

View attachment 589689 This was taken 1/30/2019. There is about ten inches of ice with about an inch of snow.

 

[Thomas]

Interesting...thanks for sharing.

 

[Buppies]

I’ve heard of frost quakes but never heard or seen them and lived on a lake for 21 years but never heard those sounds interesting though

 

[check]

I heard a lot of that at the cottage last week. Usually it is the deck wood, but I see from this thread that there are more possibilities. If I hadn’t heard these “booms” before, it would really startle me, specially when I’m up there alone.