47-Mile-Long Iceberg Breaks Off Antarctica’s Ross Shelf
An iceberg 47 miles long and 4.6 miles across has broken off the Ross Ice Shelf in the Antarctic, the National Ice Center reported Thursday.
The giant sheet of glacial ice and snow was named C-18, meaning that it’s the 18th iceberg to be tracked in that section of Antarctica since 1976, when record keeping began.
The iceberg, floating close to the ice shelf, is not considered a hazard to navigation. It was spotted on satellite images.
The discovery comes just less than a month after a much larger iceberg--40 miles by 53 miles--broke away from another part of Antarctica. Also in March, a large floating ice shelf in Antarctica collapsed. The 1,250-square-mile section of the Larsen Ice Shelf collapsed during a five-week period that ended March 7.
Meanwhile, however, new measurements indicate the ice in parts of Antarctica is thickening, reversing earlier estimates that the sheet was melting.
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