Mud crystals?

The strangest thing happened to our yard after this week's snow.

I looked out our back window as the snow melted and saw what looked like loose top soil had been thrown around our yard.

I've never seen anything like it so I bundled up and went for a closer look. The photos above are what I found.

My guess is that the water soaked into our hard-as-nails red dirt yard, then froze. The ice had nowhere to go but up, so our yard is now laced with strange mud crystals.

Good news for us though. Now perhaps we won't have to aerate when we sow grass seed this spring.