According to the British Antarctic Survey, the huge iceberg measures roughly 490 square miles (1,270 square km) and is nearly 500 feet (150 m) thick.
In a viral video form Antarctica, a huge chunk of iceberg, almost 20 times the size of Manhattan city has split off from the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica on Friday (February 26) morning.
The dramatic crack comes almost 10 years after scientists discovered a major crack formed on the shelf and continued to grow until the Iceberg finally broke on February 26.
The so-called "North Rift" crack is the third major chasm to actively tear across the Brunt Ice Shelf in the last decade, and so scientists with the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) were absolutely expecting the split, reported Reuters.
According to the British Antarctic Survey, the huge iceberg measures roughly 490 square miles (1,270 square km) and is nearly 500 feet (150 meters) thick.
"Our teams at BAS have been prepared for the calving of an iceberg from Brunt Ice Shelf for years. Over [the] coming weeks or months, the iceberg may move away; or it could run aground and remain close to Brunt Ice Shelf,” Dame Jane Francis, the director of the BAS, said in a statement.
“We monitor the ice shelf daily using an automated network of high-precision GPS instruments that surround the station, this measure how the ice shelf is deforming and moving. We also use satellite images from ESA (European Space Agency), NASA and the German satellite TerraSAR-X,” Professor Dame added.
"Although the breaking off of large parts of Antarctic ice shelves is an entirely normal part of how they work, large calving events such as the one detected at the Brunt Ice Shelf on Friday remain quite rare and exciting," said Adrian Luckman, a professor at Swansea University in Wales who was tracking the shelf through satellite images in the last few weeks.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Icebergs are pieces of ice that have broken off from glaciers or ice shelves and are now floating in open water.
(With inputs from Reuters and IANS)
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 "Watch: Massive icerberg breaks off from Antarctica's Brunt Ice Shelf")
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