<p>Nilas Sea Ice <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Sea_ice" class="extiw" title="w:en:Sea ice">sea ice</a>  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baffin_Bay" class="extiw" title="w:Baffin Bay">w:Baffin Bay</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic" class="extiw" title="w:Arctic">w:Arctic</a>.
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In calm water, the first sea ice to form on the surface is a skim of separate crystals which initially are in the form of tiny discs, floating flat on the surface and of diameter less than 2-3 mm. Each disc has its <a href="//commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=C-axis&amp;action=edit&amp;redlink=1" class="new" title="C-axis (page does not exist)">c-axis</a> vertical and grows outwards laterally. At a certain point such a disc shape becomes unstable, and the growing isolated crystals take on a hexagonal, stellar form, with long fragile arms stretching out over the surface. These crystals also have their c-axis vertical. The dendritic arms are very fragile, and soon break off, leaving a mixture of discs and arm fragments. With any kind of turbulence in the water, these fragments break up further into random-shaped small crystals which form a suspension of increasing density in the surface water, an ice type called <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/frazil_ice" class="extiw" title="w:frazil ice">frazil or grease ice</a></b>. In quiet conditions the frazil crystals soon freeze together to form a continuous thin sheet of young ice; in its early stages, when it is still transparent, it is called <b>nilas</b>. When only a few centimetres thick this is transparent (<b>dark nilas</b>) but as the ice grows thicker the nilas takes on a grey and finally a white appearance. The image was taken from an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/icebreaker" class="extiw" title="w:icebreaker">w:icebreaker</a>.
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<span class="int-own-work" lang="en">Own work</span>