Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Soil questions Leak stops when frozen

I have messaged with a couple of people on this subject and now will put it out for the full forum. It seems very strange.

Several weeks ago we had two different cold snaps where it got to maybe 5 degrees for lows and stayed below or near freezing for highs for about two days.
I noticed a when this happened that the 3/8 to 1/2 inch per day leak in my pond stops when the ground freezes and there is a small amount of ice on the pond, mostly on the edges. Any idea why the frozen ground would stop the leak unless the water is wicking horizontally through shallow soil just a bit below full pool? The ground only froze about two or three inches deep. The topsoil is silt loam about 8 inches deep. Subsoil is all sticky red and blue clays. We scraped the topsoil away up to full pool level, so no water is in contact with the topsoil.

I think my leak could be into soil on the shallow side of the pond opposite the dam. Wonder how I could fix it? It seems the clay subsoil would puddle after a while.

If it is wicking into topsoil, I would think you would find soft spots.

My old pond, before it was refurbished and the dam redone, always had a seep in one spot at the base of the dam. I know this because as a kid one of my chores was bush hogging the pasture and I always had to be careful around that spot to not get stuck.