Since then, staff have been deployed only during the Antarctic summer between November and March, with 21 researchers currently on-site. The mobile research base was relocated to the station about 20km (12.4 miles) further inland in 2016 as cracks in the ice threatened to cut it off. The iceberg, which has yet to be named by the US National Ice Center, is now expected to drift off with the current along the Antarctic coast like previous massive icebergs.īritain’s Halley VI Research Station monitors the state of the vast floating ice shelf daily but is unaffected by the latest rupture. In the years since, the gap widened until the chunk of ice broke away.Ī similar spectacular separation, involving a 1,270sq km (490 square miles) iceberg, occurred about a year ago. The fissure in the ice sheet, which researchers named Chasm-1, was discovered years ago.
Scientists refer to “calving” when chunks of ice break off at the terminus, or end, of a glacier. “This calving event has been expected and is part of the natural behaviour of the Brunt Ice Shelf,” said BAS glaciologist Dominic Hodgson. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said the formation of the new iceberg was not due to climate change – which is accelerating the loss of sea ice in the Arctic and parts of Antarctica – but to a natural process called “calving”. Keep reading list of 3 items list 1 of 3 Photos: Concerns as Pakistan glaciers melt list 2 of 3 Switzerland records worst melt rate of its glaciers list 3 of 3 Climate change: Major glaciers worldwide to disappear by 2050 end of list
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