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Accumulation of floating ice made up of fragments less than about 2 m across is called brash ice. Brash ice often forms between the ice floes. Brash ice consists of frazil ice that grows during freeze-up as well as rudiments of fracturing and colliding floes. Brash ice also originates from sea ice that is breaking up or commonly as debris from calving ice bergs or ice bergs that break up as part of their ongoing erosion. Whenever one large piece of ice falls off another, brash is generated and can cover quite large amounts of sea. Brash ice is considered ideal for studies of the properties of completely fresh sea ice, particularly because brash ice is a slushy mixture of ice and water that characterizes the first phase of ice formation in turbulent water, forms more rapidly than ice that freezes solid (Figures 1 and 2).
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