"Brinicle" or "Touch of death" (Antarctica)

Frozen Planet, PPC/Discovery
The BBC team records for the first time the formation of a stalactite oceanic, also known as "Brinicle" or "Touch of death" from the sea to end the life of all who cross their way.
In an unusual Act, he was registered in the Chambers of the BBC the formation of a maritime phenomenon that had never before been filmed. It is an oceanic stalactite, also known in English as "brinicle" (for "brine icicle", salt water iceberg), basically a column of ice that form when the ocean waters are extremely quiet, which means that there is a big difference between the temperature of the water (approx. - 1.9 ° C) and the temperature of the air on a layer of ice. Mark Brandon, polar oceanographer of the Open University, explains:
Heat flows from warmer up, waters to too cold air, forming new ice from the bottom. In this newly formed ice salt concentrates and push salt water channels. And because it is very cold and very salty, it is denser than the water below.

The phenomenon has also received the nickname of "touch of death" ("finger of death") because, as you can be seen in the filming, it kills everything be it stands in the passage of this icy beam of the oceanic world.
By the way, registration was performed with time-lapsecameras, in a first attempt thanks to operators of the BBC Hugh Miller and Doug Anderson. The place of the finding was under the Little Razorback Island, in the Antarctic pole.