Snow and what you can find in it

Pictures of freshly fallen snow from Lapland

After a few days of thaw, some more snow fell. Its consistency was more like a kind of crumbly thin surface, comparable to a meringue topping.

So off we went under the microscope:

Here again some of the pictures from the movie with explanations:

There are several samples, some directly under the microscope, others stained with Astra Blue. In order to assess the crystallization, some samples were mixed with 0.9 percent salt. However, the snow showed virtually no distinct crystal structures until I added considerably more salt. And it took a lot of salt. I can't say what prevents crystallization. But something must be present in the snow to prevent this otherwise occurring process from taking place.

A portion of the snow reacted to different color irradiation, where normally nothing should light up:

These crystal forms are particularly atypical; they normally only occur with methyl groups:

And thread structures can also be found

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