NATION : D.C.-Sized Iceberg Losing Girth

The oldest known drifting iceberg, a structure once twice the size of the nation’s capital, is breaking up in the South Atlantic, officials said today.

First spotted by satellite in January, 1978, when it was about twice the size of Washington, D.C., the iceberg was measured in 1983 by a Coast Guard icebreaker, which found that it still had one side exceeding 20 miles in length.

“And that was only the tip of the iceberg,” said Navy Capt. Tom Callaham, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Ice Center. “For four years it was grounded in more than 200 feet of water.”

The iceberg drifted free in 1982 and moved west around Antarctica, driven by a current that circulated counterclockwise along the continent’s coast, Callaham said.

After a 5,700-mile odyssey that took it almost entirely around the Antarctic continent, the iceberg was last sighted in early February southwest of the Falkland Islands, off the Argentine coast, he said.