What's the problem with this strange square iceberg?

Look at this iceberg. It's beautiful. Perfectly rectangular. An object of almost geometric perfection that advances in a polar sea from the usual chaotic random chance of the natural world. This is reminiscent of the monolith of "2001: An Odyssey of Space".

But, unlike the monolith of this very strange movie, this iceberg has not been deposited on this world by extraterrestrials. Instead, as explained by Kelly Brunt, ice scientist at NASA and the University of Maryland, this phenomenon was probably created by a relatively common process along the icebergs.

"So here's the contract," said Brunt. "We have two types of icebergs: we have the type that everyone can imagine in his head that sank the Titanic, and they look like prisms or triangles on the surface and crazy basement. you have what we call "tabular icebergs". " [In Photos: Huge Icebergs Break Off Antarctica]

Tabular icebergs are broad and flat, and long, like pies, said Brunt. They separated from the ice banks – large blocks of ice, connected to the ground but floating in the water surrounding icy places like Antarctica. This came from the dilapidated pack ice of Larsen C on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Since yesterday's #IceBridge flight: a tabular iceberg is visible to the right, floating among the sea ice, just off the Larsen ice floe C. The sharp angles and the flat surface of the iceberg indicate that it probably has was recently calved from the pack ice. pic.twitter.com/XhgTrf642Z

Tabular icebergs are formed, she said, through a process that looks a bit like a fingernail that gets too long and creaks in the end. As a result, they are often rectangular and geometric, she added.

"What makes this one a little unusual is that it looks almost like a square," said Brunt.

It's hard to tell the size of the iceberg in this photo, she said, but it's probably more than a mile wide. And, like all icebergs, the visible part above the surface only represents the top 10% of its mass. The rest, said Brunt, is hidden under the water.

In the case of tabular icebergs, she said, this subsurface mass usually has a regular, geometric appearance similar to that seen above. This iceberg looks rather cool, she said. Its sharp angles indicate that the wind and the waves did not have a lot of time to break it.

But despite the great mass of Ireland, she did not advise against walking on her surface, explained Brunt.

"It probably would not work," she said.

The thing is still much wider than deep, after all. But it's small enough to be unstable and crack at any time.

So it is probably best to marvel at this thing from a distance.