Sand pillars decorate the shore by Lake Michigan at Tiscornia Park, with the North Pier Lighthouse in the background. The image was taken by Terri Abbott.
Two photographers posted their images of the nature-made marvels online in early January, after seeing the sandy sculptures rising from the beach by Lake Michigan.
How did these statues come to be?
Daniel Bonn is a physicist and head of the van der Waals-Zeeman Institute at the University of Amsterdam.
There are photos of sand dune shapes.
The hoodoos were different heights, ranging from 3 to 20 inches tall, according to a nature photographer who lives in northern Indiana. Abbott noticed the shapes on the beach while visiting Tiscornia Park.
"Laying on the ground and shooting through the sculptures made it seem like a different planet," Abbott told Live Science in a Facebook message. They were hard to get to. They were each amazing in their own way because of the intricate and sharp edges.
Abbott had never seen a sculpture like this before. She said she couldn't believe how chiseled they were.
There are sand sculptures at Tiscornia Park. The image is from Joshua.Nowicki.
Bonn was the senior researcher on a study titled "How to construct the perfect sandcastle", which was published in the journal Scientific Reports in 2012 and states that Michigan's freezing winter temperatures helped set the stage for the formation of the weird, chess-like pieces.
Bonn told Live Science that there are liquid patches in the sand that freeze when it gets cold. He noted that the coast is windy. He said that when the wind blows into the frozen patches, there are two opposing actions that happen: One is the sand grains attaching to the frozen patch, and the other is the sand grains not attaching to the frozen patch. Bonn said that the structure forms a roughly cylindrical consolidated sandcastle-like structure.
In one case, the wind and the sand it carries can erode the sand pillars, taking sand away, which leads to the rings and the asymmetric shape of the cylinder.
Some of the sand from the pillars ends up on the beach. There are point-like structures that result from the sandblasting of the cylinder in some photos.
3 of 3 are images
There is a view of the North Pier Lighthouse from the sand pillars on the beach. The image is from Joshua.Nowicki.
The sand pillars only lasted a few days. The image is from Joshua.Nowicki.
There are sand sculptures in St. Joseph, Michigan. The image was taken by Terri Abbott.
The same sand pillars were 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 800-361-3020 If there is wet sand and sustained high winds, these pillars can occur at any time of the year. When the sand is frozen, they only get bigger than a couple of inches tall.
The sand sculptures he saw this year were some of the tallest he had ever photographed, the largest being 38 cm tall and a couple of inches in diameter. There were at least six groups on the beach with at least thirty sand structures in one group.
Most pillars don't last long. In the winter, the wind completely erodes them or knocks them down, if the temperature goes up above freezing, they fall, and often in the winter they get covered by drifting snow.
The pillars of Tiscornia Park crumbled when the temperatures started to warm. He said that they are very special because they only exist for a short time. You have to be there at the right time to see them.
Live Science published the original article.
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