Iceberg Antarctica: Fracture of 15 miles splits iceberg of city size apart

Iceberg Antarctica: Fracture of 15 miles splits iceberg of city size apart, An iceberg Antarctica chunk that’s split from Antarctica’s massive Pine Island Glacier this week is now floating on its own following a 15-mile fracture of literally epic proportions, UPI reported this Friday, July 12. The iceberg “piece” reportedly spans a giant 278 square miles, and is even larger than the local city of Chicago in sheer size.

The iceberg Antarctica is now drifting aimlessly in the Amundsen Sea. Its cracking divide from the Pine Island mother glacier was noticed by TerraSAR-X, a satellite run by the Germany Space Agency.

While the sudden split may come as a shock to Antarctica, news of the iceberg breaking free isn’t necessarily a total surprise. NASA experts first discovered late last year in 2012 that a 15-mile fracture had formed along the Pine Island Glacier while examining the ice sheet, and another fissure was already forming near the first giant crack.

"As a result of these cracks, one giant iceberg broke away from the glacier tongue," said one glaciologist in a recent statement.

This iceberg Antarctica has thus in fact been under close study for quite some time, and that icebergs breaking off, becoming free-flowing chunks of ice is actually a common process, though having one of such a size as close to that of the city of Chicago may have serious effects
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"Glaciers are constantly in motion," she said. "They have their very own flow dynamics. Their ice is exposed to permanent tensions and the calving of icebergs is still largely unresearched."

The “rapid flow” of the iceberg Antarctica mentioned in the report was said to be “act[ing] as a plug that holds back the immense West Antarctic Ice Sheet, whose melting ice is contributing to rising sea levels.”

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