Larsen C Crack Is in Its Final Stages; Will Produce One of World's Largest Icebergs Ever Recorded
The saga of the*Larsen C crack*is about reach its stunning conclusion. Scientists have watched a rift grow along one of Antarctica’s ice shelves for years. Now it’s in the final days of cutting off a piece of ice that will be one of the largest icebergs ever recorded.
It’s the latest dreary news from the icy underbelly of the planet, which has seen warm air and water reshape the landscape in profound ways.
The crack has spread 17 miles over the past six days, marking the biggest leap since January. It’s also turned toward where the ice shelf ends and is within eight miles of making a clean break. There’s not much standing in its way either.
“The rift has now fully breached the zone of soft ‘suture’ ice originating at the Cole Peninsula and there appears to be very little to prevent the iceberg from breaking away completely,” scientists monitoring the ice with Project MIDAS*wrote on their blog.
The breakup is sure to be a spectacle both awe-inducing and horrifying. The iceberg on the verge of splitting off is estimated to be the size of Delaware, covering an area of 1,930 square miles. That’s equal to 10 percent of the ice shelf’s total area. The growth follows reports from early May that the crack across the ice shelf had sprouted a branch, further underscoring how unstable the ice is becoming. Ice shelves float over water and essentially act as doorstops that hold back the vast Antarctic ice sheet.
Once it breaks off, scientists are concerned that the rest of ice shelf could collapse afterwards, a fate that befell Larsen A in 1995 and Larsen B in 2002. In Larsen B’s case, the ice shelf collapsed in the span of a month following an influx of mild air.
The saga of the*Larsen C crack*is about reach its stunning conclusion. Scientists have watched a rift grow along one of Antarctica’s ice shelves for years. Now it’s in the final days of cutting off a piece of ice that will be one of the largest icebergs ever recorded.
It’s the latest dreary news from the icy underbelly of the planet, which has seen warm air and water reshape the landscape in profound ways.
The crack has spread 17 miles over the past six days, marking the biggest leap since January. It’s also turned toward where the ice shelf ends and is within eight miles of making a clean break. There’s not much standing in its way either.
“The rift has now fully breached the zone of soft ‘suture’ ice originating at the Cole Peninsula and there appears to be very little to prevent the iceberg from breaking away completely,” scientists monitoring the ice with Project MIDAS*wrote on their blog.
The breakup is sure to be a spectacle both awe-inducing and horrifying. The iceberg on the verge of splitting off is estimated to be the size of Delaware, covering an area of 1,930 square miles. That’s equal to 10 percent of the ice shelf’s total area. The growth follows reports from early May that the crack across the ice shelf had sprouted a branch, further underscoring how unstable the ice is becoming. Ice shelves float over water and essentially act as doorstops that hold back the vast Antarctic ice sheet.
Once it breaks off, scientists are concerned that the rest of ice shelf could collapse afterwards, a fate that befell Larsen A in 1995 and Larsen B in 2002. In Larsen B’s case, the ice shelf collapsed in the span of a month following an influx of mild air.