These stunning photos  were taken by University of Washington graduate student Jeff Bowman and his professor Jody Deming as the worked to combine oceanography, microbiology, and planetary sciences into their study in the the central Arctic Ocean on frost flowers, an amazing instance where frost grows in extreme sub-zero temperatures nearing -22C or -7.6F
from imperfections in the surface ice.

These spiky structures house microorganisms, not unlike a coral reef. 

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