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Frazil is a Canadian word. It comes from the French Canadian word “frasil”, which, confusingly, has a similar but different definition: snow floating on water, or the first small ice pans as water starts to freeze. The French Canadian word comes from the French “fraisil” for cinders, which the floating snow resembles. From what I've seen people often seem to use "frazil" to mean what really should be frasil (in the French Candian sense). Meters (talk) 06:40, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Frazil ice gives the ocean's surface a slightly oily appearance." -- presumably this is only the case in circumpolar and near-circumpolar regions? kraemer22:00, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Given the number of Wikipedians who live in northern climes, would it be possible for someone this winter to post a copylefted image of frazil ice? Captainktainer * Talk09:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Probably not. Frazil ice occurs below the surface of turbulent, sub-zero water, and the crystals are tiny. The best I can do is a sketch from a 1913 Canadian Government report. I'll have to check if it meets Public Domain requirements. Meters (talk) 23:46, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Trash Racks"? "Flooding" and "Damage" ?? I am clueless. It's almost as if this information was clipped from other documentation and pasted without any subsequent editing. This entry needs some work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.161.114.71 (talk) 11:26, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder if this article is under the correct title. As I have understood it the thing mentioned in this article is what is referred to as "frazil". "Frazil ice" on the other hand is when frazil accumulates and forms an ice sheet. Reading the article "Frazil Ice Blockage of Intake Trash Racks" that is linked from this article they also seem to mostly talk about the loose crystals in water as "frazil" (not as "frazil ice"). --Kr-val17:23, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The "Thermal Control" section says that resistance heaters work well, but then a couple sentences later it says that electrical
systems have safety problems. Can someone straighten this out?
The text in "Damage Mitigation" doesn't make sense to me. What's it trying to say?
The phrase "ineffective buoyancy" should probably be replaced by the actual density of the frazil ice as compared to water, ie "is *this much* less than water" or something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.44.57 (talk) 07:22, 13 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In the 'Formation' section the article says: "The supercooled water will already be encouraging the formation of small ice crystals (frazil ice) ..." and "Sometimes, the concentration is estimated to reach one million crystals per cubic meter."
There are one million cubic centimeters (milliliters) in a cubic meter (100^3).
One million crystals per cubic meter means each crystal has, on the average, a volume of one milliliter.
A one milliliter crystal hardly qualifies as 'small'.
I would find "the concentration is estimated to reach one million crystals per cubic centimeter" more believeable.
I've seen estimates of several million crystals per cubic meter, but never anything near as high as you are suggesting. The crystals are in suspension in the water, so the average size of the crystals has nothing to do with the sample volume of water. Meters (talk) 00:13, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unless someone has a good reason for keeping the image File:Nilas_Sea_Ice1.jpg, I'm getting rid of it. The description is wrong, since the picture's documentation makes it clear that nilas is one possible result of frasil, rather than the first stage of frasil ice. Meters (talk) 00:48, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]