A widening chasm in Antarctica‘s Brunt Ice Shelf, which forced Britain’s Halley Research Station to be moved to safety Several years ago, it finally broke in two, giving birth to a massive iceberg more than 30 kilometers (20 miles) across.
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) reported on Monday (January 23) that the giant iceberg had “break away” from the floating surface. freezer on Sunday (January 22), between 2 pm and 3 pm EST (1900 GMT and 2000 GMT), during an exceptionally high sea tide, known as a spring tide, when the moon and sun are facing each other other.
The BAS said the massive gouge known as Chasm-1, which its scientists have been monitoring for a decade, had finally split the 490-foot-thick (150-meter) ice shelf in two, creating a massive iceberg, roughly 600 square meters. miles (1,550 square kilometers) in area, or larger than Los Angeles.
“Our glaciologists and operations teams have been anticipating this event,” jane francisco (opens in a new tab)the director of BAS, said in a statement (opens in a new tab).
BAS scientists will now monitor the new iceberg; it is expected to float west in Antarctica’s Weddell Sea.
Related: The world’s largest iceberg is being washed away from Antarctica, a satellite image shows
antarctic ice
This is the second large iceberg to break off the Brunt Ice Shelf in two years, but scientists believe both events are the result of natural processes, not anthropogenic ones. climate change.
the first iceberg, designated A-74it was about 20 times the size of Manhattan when it calved in February 2021, and has floated into the Weddell Sea ever since.
The new iceberg is slightly larger, but it still doesn’t have a name.
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“This calving event was expected and is part of the natural behavior of the Brunt Ice Shelf,” BAS glaciologist dominic hodgson (opens in a new tab) he said in the statement. “It’s not related to climate change.”
Chasm-1 had been dormant for at least 35 years, but in 2012, satellite data revealed that it was elongating; by 2016, it was growing over 1 mile (1.6 km) in length each year.
Several years ago, the BAS decided that the growing Chasm-1 crack and another crack, known as the Halloween Crack, threatened its Halley Research Station on the Brunt Ice Shelf; and so eight of the modular-based building were towed to a new location approximately 14 miles (23 kilometers) inland from Chasm-1 during the Antarctic summer of 2016 and 2017.
The latest calving has no implications for the relocated base: “The area of the ice shelf where the research station is located is currently unaffected by recent calving events,” BAS reported in the statement.
