Posted on 11/05/2003 11:46:56 AM PST by Indy Pendance
The world's biggest iceberg has been split in two by a powerful storm, scientists say.
The huge iceberg, the size of Jamaica, broke up over the last month.
Eight smaller icebergs have also split away from it.
The 4,400 square mile piece of ice, named B15, suffered a massive fracture when the Antarctic storm swept in.
Scientists said they had expected it to split "eventually".
The two pieces, designated B15A and B15J by the US National Ice Centre, are now slowly edging their way along the Ross Sea, said Mike Williams of New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research.
"They are still grounded on the Ross Sea floor by their weight," he said, adding there must have been "some inherent weakness" in the iceberg where it split in two.
B15 had been grounded off the Ross Sea ice shelf coast of Antarctica for more than three years, pounded by storms and waves and tugged by coastal ocean currents.
It was identified as the world's biggest iceberg three years ago when it broke from the Ross Ice Shelf.
The Ross Sea is on the northern Antarctic coast, 2,395 miles south of New Zealand.
The oceans are rising, we're all going to drown.
World's biggest? Good grief, what mono-neuronic idiot dreamed up that Bravo Sierra?
This is typical fear mongering by enviro-whackos that want you to believe that global warming is beginning to destroy the Antarctic ice field. Well, here's a little historic truth to give you some perspective about such "super" large icebergs and how common they really are. The following piece is from the 1966 edition of the world's premier source for data about the oceans and navigation, the U.S. Navy's "American Practical Navigator", in print continuously for over 200 years.
"In the Ross Sea in Antarctica this shelf ice attains a thickness of 500 to 1,000 feet. At the outer edge, large pieces eventually break away, forming tabular icebergs (fig. 3604a), with dimensions measured in miles. In 1854 and 1855 several ships in the South Atlantic reported a crescent-shaped iceberg with one horn 40 miles long, the other 60 miles long, and with an embayment 40 miles wide between the tips. In 1927 a berg 100 miles long, 100 miles wide [poster's note: That's 10,000 square miles or 2.5 times the size of Jamaica], and 130 feet above the water, was reported. The largest iceberg ever reported was sighted in 1956 by the USS Glacier, a U.S. Navy icebreaker, about 150 miles west of Scott Island. This berg was 60 miles wide and 208 miles long, more than twice the size of Connecticut. [poster's note: That's 12,480 square miles or three times the size of Jamaica]In other words, iceberg "B15" is nothing new or novel, more like a wanna be ice cube, in a long line of such bergs.
--Boot Hill
...and We only begun to record these things! Only 148 years of scanty records. I'm sure much larger bergs have broken off thru the ages. (recorded and otherwise.) The greenie-Weenees will scream about this for sure...some/if not all Brain$h*t liberals, will stand on the steps of the Capitol Bldg...crying uncontrollable about this and try to blame GWB/the USA for the impemding disaster. :/
That's exactly correct. It wasn't until about the last ten years that we've had good satellite photo recon of the Antarctic and it's icebergs. Before then, iceberg sightings were haphazard, at best, because that is an area of the world that few mariners dared travel. Ask any sailor what is meant by the phrases "roaring forties" or "screaming sixties" and they'll tell you why sailors do their damndest to avoid that area of the world.
--Boot Hill
--Boot
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