Here’s what a leaf can do to water.

And here’s what a rock can do.

Here, a closer look.

And here’s what air can do without any help.

Water changes form. Here’s what soil can do to it.

And all together:

Boundaries formed by the pressure of air being pushed around by the expansion of water freezing into ice (9%)…

… are a pumping system…

….but are not the boundaries water breaks along.

The expansion pressure of ice, and the pressure bands it forms, as well as the air that freezing water releases are suggestive of what we could call “slow technology”: natural processes that do work — in this case pressurizing and depressurizing, binding and breaking, drying and hardening systems, and all the work that can come from that. These effects can be precisely manipulated by the salinity of the water and atmospheric pressure, as well as by heat.

The resulting stress fractures also bend light.

Is it the speed of a technology that measures its efficiency? A pump can be slow, right? All this work can be read back from the ice, to determine temperature, pressure and salinity over time.

No gauges necessary. Water can store a lot more than just heat and cold.