Video: The world’s largest iceberg is just 150 km from South Georgia Island

British Air Force reconnaissance plane filmed from the air the largest iceberg in the world, the A68a, which fell off Antarctica in mid-2017 and has been floating aimlessly since then.

The immense mass of 4,200 square kilometers and 30 meter high cliffs, still adrift in the Weddell Sea, but is only 150 kilometers from South Georgia Island, about 1,500 kilometers from the Falkland Islands.

The images in the video accompanying this note were taken by Corporal Phil Dye and posted on science journalist Jonathan Amos’ Twitter account.

In an almost low flight, the iceberg could be filmed up close and they surprise – not to say disturbing – the cracks run through it, even revealing the mirror of ice water at the bottom of them. The sea around it is also covered with small icebergs. The million dollar question is whether the moving iceberg will continue to travel or crash and he will be trapped against the coast of the island.

While the news that it was trapped in the South Atlantic would undoubtedly be a relief, we Argentines, scientists in the region – busy studying and predicting the course of this huge frozen raft – believe that would not be good news for the millions of seals, penguins and seabirds who inhabit the place.

For all these guests of nature, the wetting of the iceberg prevent them from accessing krill and fish The Antarctics who feed them daily.

“Now we enter the key moment of the year for breedingMark Belchier, director of fisheries and environment for the government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, told the BBC.

For the moment, a maritime alert will not be launched since the coronavirus pandemic has caused the navigation of the 80 tourist cruises that circulate through the southern seas for this time of year.

When in 2017 came off the ice shelf Larsen C, on the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, the block of ice was a colossus of 6,000 km2, had a keel 200 meters deep and was simply called A68. So broke into two blocks, one larger than the other.

For 12 months it rocked like a paper boat, not leaving the Southern Iceberg Alley, but then set sail aimlessly, for a slow, drifting journey through the Weddell Sea.

Iceberg A68a measures virtually the same as Gran Malvina Island. Or you could say it’s half of Crete or half of Puerto Rico.

Until now, the largest iceberg in history was the B15, which measured 11,000 km2 surface when it became independent from the Ross Shelf in 2000. It took three years to enter the open waters of the Atlantic, also between the Falklands and the island of Georgia, to finally disappear.

mm / ds