Pile-up as berg hits Antarctica
An
iceberg the size of Luxembourg has smashed into another vast slab of ice that
juts out from Antarctica.
The 115km-long B-15A
iceberg broke off a 5km-long section of the Drygalski ice tongue when it
collided with the prominence in the Ross Sea.
The iceberg itself so far
appears unaffected by the smash-up.
More of the B-15A iceberg
still has to pass by Drygalski, so the ice tongue may be in for even more
punishment in the coming days, experts have said.
The European Space
Agency's Earth-observation platform Envisat has returned some remarkable images
of the collision.
Prevailing currents
From January, the iceberg
has been on a collision course with the 70-km-long Drygalski ice tongue in
McMurdo Sound in the Ross Sea.
In the last month,
prevailing currents have been slowly edging B-15A along past the northern edge
of Drygalski.
The iceberg could cause
yet more problems. It appears to be rotating into Terra Nova Bay, where it
could cause problems for penguins trying to feed and for the Italian Mario
Zuchelli research base which is located there.
B-15A has an area
exceeding 2,500 sq km and is the largest remaining section of the even bigger
B-15 iceberg that broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000.
About the
same size as Jamaica, B-15 had an initial area of 11,655 sq km but subsequently
broke up into smaller pieces.
Since then, B-15A has
drifted its way to McMurdo Sound, where its presence blocked ocean currents and
led to a build-up of sea ice.
Because penguins had to
swim greater distances to reach open waters and food, this prompted fears that
many chicks could starve.
The Drygalski ice tongue
stretches out into McMurdo Sound as an extension of the land-based David
Glacier, which flows through the coastal mountains of Victoria Land.
It is large and permanent
enough to feature in Antarctic atlases, which may now have to be amended.
Story
from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4460335.stm
Published: 2005/04/19 12:16:43 GMT
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