Lake Michigan’s shoreline transforms into something alien each winter, sprouting cone-shaped towers that hiss and spit like their molten cousins. Except these volcanoes erupt ice, not lava.
In February 2023, ice volcanoes along the shores of Lake Erie reached heights of 30 feet, drawing crowds of baffled onlookers who’d never seen anything like it. The formations look exactly like miniature Mount St. Helens—complete with craters—but they’re assembled from frozen spray and slush, not magma. Here’s the thing: they’re not technically volcanoes at all, yet the comparison isn’t just poetic license. These structures genuinely erupt, hurling chunks of ice and frigid water skyward in explosive bursts that can catch the unwary photographer off guard.
When Waves Decide to Build Their Own Architecture
The mechanics are almost embarrassingly simple for something so spectacular. Waves crash against shelf ice—those thick platforms that extend from shore into the water—and the pressure forces water and slush up through cracks and weak points. Think of it like geological acne: pressure builds beneath the surface until something’s gotta give. The expelled mixture freezes almost instantly in subzero temperatures, layer upon layer, constructing a hollow cone around the vent. Each subsequent eruption adds another frozen shell.
Turns out the Great Lakes are perfect laboratories for this phenomenon.
Their fetch—the distance wind travels over open water—creates waves powerful enough to punch through ice but not so overwhelming that they simply destroy everything. In January 2022, ice volcanoes on Lake Ontario grew so numerous and unstable that park officials closed sections of shoreline. One formation collapsed while tourists were photographing it, fortunately injuring no one but demonstrating these aren’t exactly inert structures. They’re active, dynamic, and occasionally treacherous.
The Sound Nobody Expects from Something Made of Ice
Stand near an active ice volcano and you’ll hear it before you fully comprehend what you’re witnessing—a deep whumpf followed by a hissing roar as slush and water fountain upward. The eruptions aren’t constant; they pulse with wave action, sometimes minutes apart, sometimes in rapid succession. During the polar vortex of 2019, when temperatures across the Midwest plummeted to minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit with wind chill, ice volcanoes along Lake Michigan’s shore became hyperactive, erupting every 30 to 40 seconds.
The phenomenon isn’t limited to the Great Lakes, though that’s where it achieves its most dramatic expression. Norway’s fjords occasionally host ice volcanoes. Antarctica has them, naturally, though documenting them there proves challenging for obvious reasons. Even the Caspian Sea develops them during particularly brutal winters.
Wait—maybe the most fascinating aspect isn’t the volcanoes themselves but what they reveal about ice physics.
Why Scientists Actually Care About Frozen Fountains Beyond Cool Photos
Researchers studying ice dynamics use these formations as natural laboratories. The way ice volcanoes build and collapse offers insights into how pressure redistributes through ice sheets, relevant to understanding everything from Arctic sea ice behavior to the stability of glacial ice shelves. A 2021 study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research analyzed ice volcano formation on Lake Superior, measuring pressure differentials and structural integrity. The data helps refine models of how ice responds to wave action and thermal stress.
Plus there’s the climate angle. Ice volcanoes only form under specific conditions: sufficiently cold temperatures to maintain shelf ice, but not so cold that lake surfaces freeze solid. They require that Goldilocks zone of partial freezing. As winters warm, the window for ice volcano formation narrows. Some researchers track their occurence as an informal indicator of changing winter conditions across the Great Lakes region.
The formations rarely survive more than a few weeks. Once temperatures rise above freezing, they melt quickly, leaving behind only photographic evidence and bewildered memories. By March, the exotic ice architecture vanishes, the shoreline returning to its normal state, all evidence of frozen eruptions erased until the next brutal winter decides to build volcanoes from water instead of fire.
