Famous Antarctic iceberg finally melts away
An enormous iceberg whose journeys were probably the most well-documented in history has now melted away to nothing in the Atlantic Ocean. A68 cracked off the
Larsen C Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula in 2017 as one of the biggest icebergs ever. At the time it measured 2,240 square miles.
In the time since the berg has been buffeted about the South Atlantic, curving up towards the island of South Georgia. Warm temperatures and waves then broke it into large chunks. Those chunks have since fragmented into pieces too small to track. The US National Ice Center tracks icebergs that are at least ten nautical miles in length or that have an area of at least 20 square nautical miles. The largest piece of Larsen C no longer qualifies: as of 16 April it measured only three by two nautical miles.
A68 was likely studied more than any other iceberg. Thanks to ample satellite imagery, it was obvious when the enormous iceberg first began to crack under the strain of movement – only a week after it broke free from the ice shelf. Scientists could see the rifts in the ice and the temperature differential in the water that surrounded it. They watched it get stuck on a seamount not far from where it calved and then pirouette towards warmer waters in a current called the Weddell Gyre.
In November 2020 it looked like A68 might crash into the shallows near South Georgia Island, blocking access to the ocean for penguins that roost there. But A68 swung wide, instead gradually getting mushy and fractured as waves stressed it and warm water seeped into and widened small cracks.