The huge floating iceberg that broke away from Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf in 2017 appears to have lost another large chunk along the way and is coming dangerously close to the island of South Georgia. According to experts, the more than 180 square kilometer chunk broke apart when the frozen structure hit the continental shelf outside the island, “generating a new iceberg.”
Broken into two pieces
The huge chunk of ice has been drifting heavily north since 2017 and, even from the water, A -68a looks like a moving island, with cliffs rising up to 30 meters above sea level.
In April 2020 it measured 5,100 square kilometers and now this land of floating ice is heading on a collision course with South Georgia Island, a wildlife refuge in the South Atlantic Ocean that is home to millions of penguins, seals and other wild animals. Now, having broken in two, one piece is the size of a city (about 18 km long) and the other piece is much larger (about 135 km long). The iceberg was previously the largest iceberg on Earth, but has now moved to second place. First place now goes to iceberg A-23A, which is currently stuck in the Weddell Sea, with a size of almost 4,000 square kilometers.
Why has the great iceberg broken?
It is not entirely clear, but the European Space Agency (ESA) believes that a collision with the shallow seabed several tens of kilometers off the coast of South Georgia may have caused this worrying split. Thus, the new satellite images show that the iceberg has rotated clockwise, moving one end of the iceberg closer to the shelf and into shallow water. In doing so, the iceberg could have scraped the seabed, less than 200 meters deep, causing a huge block of ice to break off the northern tip of the iceberg.
Will he collide with the island full of penguins?
In a matter of days it could crash into that uninhabited but teeming with wildlife. Apparently, the collision is almost inevitable. Scientists tracking the iceberg’s progress via satellite warned that A68a, powered by the powerful circumpolar current, could reach South Georgia in just a few days .
Does it pose a threat?
That’s how it is. It is a danger to wildlife, as its impact has the potential to wipe out marine life on the island’s ocean shelf and make the waters inhospitable as it melts and releases fresh water.
If A-68a stays on the high seas for too long, it could block the nearby waters where penguins living on the island feed. And its impact on birds? We will have to wait for the upcoming observations and images to gauge what the consequences for the birds would be.
If kept on its current trajectory, the iceberg, which is roughly the same size as the island itself, could reach the shallow waters off the coast this month and cause real problems for the island’s wildlife and the life that inhabits on the seabed.
Reference: NASA Earth Observatory / ESA
