60 Km-Long Iceberg Breaks Up East Of S. Georgia Island, EU Satellite Shows - AFP

[hatrack]

Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) sensor captures the break up of the massive A53A iceberg located just east of the South Georgia Island (visible at image bottom) in the southern Atlantic Ocean. Both bergs are estimated to measure around 30 km in length. As a reference, South Georgia Island is approximately 180-km long. Credits: ESA

Envisat captures the break up of the massive A53A iceberg located just east of the South Georgia Island (visible at image bottom) in the southern Atlantic Ocean. A huge fissure was spotted running south to north through the berg on 1 March by C-CORE, the Canadian ice-tracking service, while studying satellite images collected from Envisat's Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument using the Polar View monitoring programme.

The radar image indicated the berg was unstable and likely to split. Just days afterwards on 4 March, Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) sensor captured the break. Both bergs are estimated to measure around 30 km in length. As a reference, South Georgia Island is approximately 180-km long.

The break up of A53A, which calved off the Larsen Ice Shelf in late April 2005, occurred in relatively warm waters, making it highly likely that numerous smaller icebergs and ice islands will calve off the two icebergs.

Several different processes can cause an iceberg to form, or 'calve', including deterioration from high temperatures or the sun's radiation, action from winds and waves or a collision with another iceberg.

EDIT

http://www.spacemart.com/reports/Great_Splitting_Icebergs_999.html

[ben_meyers]

1. I hope Captain Smith

isn't napping in the chart room again!

[hatrack]

2. Bwa-hah! More likely Shackleton in those waters . . .

[XemaSab]

3. Epic fail

http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5767603,00.jpg

(And you KNOW the 150-odd people sitting in the life rafts for 6 hours awaiting rescue were thinking, to a man, "That did *NOT* just happen.")