This geometrically strange iceberg makes us panic

It's something you do not see every day: an iceberg of a form as incredibly geometric as you would think it was deliberately carved with a gigantic chain saw. Scientists have already documented this kind of thing before, but this last "iceberg", which recently separated from the Antarctic ice sheet Larsen C, is a rather extraordinary example.

What you are looking at here is a tabular iceberg. Unlike icebergs of non-tabular varieties, such as the irregularly shaped lamb that sank the Titanicthese pieces of ice are distinguished by their flat summits, their steep sides and sometimes their imposing size. On their largest, tabular icebergs can extend for hundreds of kilometers long and reach hundreds of feet below the surface.

NASA scientists spotted this iceberg in Antarctica on October 16 as part of Operation IceBridge, a permanent mission to monitor the polar regions and monitor the global climate system of the planet.

Tabular icebergs are the remains of calving events, during which a large band of ice is released from an ice patch. In this case, a strangely square iceberg was detached from Larsen C, the same ice platform that produced the gigantic A-68 iceberg in July 2017. Given its relatively smooth edges and pristine condition he has probably only recently calved, according to NASA.

Speaking to LiveScience, the University of Maryland's Earth Science Scientist, Kelly Brunt, compared calving events to a long fingernail that ended up breaking at the end. the process often results in seemingly perfect geometric edges. This iceberg has not been measured yet, but Brunt says it's about 1.6 km, which is not particularly big. In contrast, the A68 iceberg area measured approximately 5,800 square kilometers at calving time. Brunt added that only about 10% of the mass of the iceberg is visible, the rest being under water. So what you see here is just the tip of … uh … you know what.

Needless to say, this photo does not tell the whole story. It is doubtful that the iceberg as a whole is perfectly geometric. But no matter, this photo is an instant classic.