![]() Not that it matters, this is still a great shot. Still, the cheeky crop of the photo feels like NASA might be trying to hide a not perfectly geometric shape, for the sake of aesthetics. At least 90 percent of its mass is still lurking below the surface. Then again, don't be fooled by the new ice table's apparent size. The A68, as that was called, measured in at a whopping 5,800 kilometers when it calved. The rectangular iceberg may be small, but it is also part of a bigger story. As Antarctic icebergs drift, ocean currents move them around the coast. The iceberg will also start to travel away from where it formed. That might seem very large, but it's actually only a fraction of a different iceberg that broke off the same glacier earlier this year. Aerial shot shot of the rectangular iceberg found off the Larsen 3 ice shelf. Though this new iceberg hasn't officially been measured yet, Brunt estimates it to be about 1.6 kilometres across. Similarly, they often show perfect geometric edges. Also known as ice islands, the largest icebergs in the world are typically tabular. This kind of formation, which has sharp, vertical sides and a flat top, is known as a tabular icebergs. In a quote to LiveScience, University of Maryland Earth scientist Kelly Brunt likened it to a piece of a long fingernail snapping off at the end. Harbeck spotted the rectangular iceberg in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica, and it appears to have detached from a larger ice shelf. Scientists call this "calving" when a strip of ice breaks off the shelf. NASA's Operation IceBridge program spotted it on October 16 while monitoring the polar regions for changes related to global warming.Īlso Read: We Need To Make “Unprecedented Changes” If We Want To Survive Global Warming This one is particular, which recently detached itself from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf, is actually an incredibly precise example of a tabular iceberg. Some have been measured to stretch hundreds of kilometres, and extend hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean. These tabular icebergs are so named for their flat tops, steep sides and often massive sizes. While chunks of ice that break off the ice shelf are usually pretty irregular, sometimes a piece breaks off differently. And it's actually not as uncommon as you'd think. Scientists have come across this phenomenon before, it's called a tabular iceberg. That's exactly what this iceberg captured by NASA is, looking like it was carved using a giant chainsaw to exact proportions. 16, 2018, shows another relatively rectangular iceberg near the famous sharp-cornered berg. When you think of an iceberg, you're probably picturing something like the jagged behemoth that crashed into Titanic (come on, did even one of you not see that movie?).īut sometimes, nature gives you a geometric shape so exact you'd think aliens were behind it. This photo, taken during an Operation IceBridge flight over the northern Antarctic Peninsula on Oct.
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