Spaghetti-like Formations in Suolijärvi Lake

A boater has photographed spaghetti-like formations floating in a Finnish lake. And no one seems to know what they are.

Suolijärvi Lake. (Credit: Panu Horsmalahti via Creative Commons)

Vesa Kaloinen lives on the shore of Suolijärvi Lake in southern Finland. He was working on the waterfront when he saw the floating white stuff on January 8. So he grabbed his mobile phone, jumped in a rowboat and set sail.

Making his way toward the floating strands, he snapped a few photos with his phone. But since he was still curious what the soggy white matter was, he dipped his hand into the water and grabbed a handful.

The white strings looked to be tens of meters long. His hand cut through a few, as he dug out what appeared to be slush. He crushed some together to make a snowball and threw it.

Spaghetti-like formations floating in Suolijärvi Lake, Jan. 8. 2014. (Credit: someone10x via Creative Commons)

Kaloinen says the lake’s temperature was around the freezing point at the time and guesses that snow falling into the water combined with wind and wave action to create the strands. But meteorologists aren’t sure – they’ve never seen it before. Their best guess is slush.

Of course the spaghetti formations are now gone, having disappeared the following morning. And no quick-response study took place. But what were they and how did they form?

Interestingly, the lake’s name translated to English is “intestinal lake.” Perhaps the phenomenon isn’t new to this lake. Maybe it’s just new to us.