New photos of a surprisingly rectangular iceberg are offering the full picture of this now-famous Antarctic structure — and it remains weird as hell.
Scientists with NASA’s Operation IceBridge released the original photo last week, but it only showed a portion of the odd iceberg.
With much of the ‘berg out of the frame, it wasn’t clear how geometric the entire structure really was. Now, new photos released by IceBridge scientists reveal the iceberg’s true shape. It isn’t a perfect rectangle, but it’s still a highly angular quadrilateral.
These photos were captured by IceBridge senior support scientist Jeremy Harbeck, who spotted the tabular iceberg near the Larsen C ice shelf. Tabular icebergs are the products of calving ice shelves — when large chunks of ice suddenly break loose — and they’re known for their highly angular lines and smooth tops.
“I thought it was pretty interesting,” said Harbeck in a NASA statement. “I often see icebergs with relatively straight edges, but I’ve not really seen one before with two corners at such right angles like this one had.”
In July 2017, Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf released the enormous A68 iceberg, which weighs about 1000 billion tonnes and occupies an area roughly the size of the state of Delaware. Harbeck and his colleagues were investigating this massive structure when the geometric shape was spotted.
“I was actually more interested in capturing the A68 iceberg that we were about to fly over, but I thought this rectangular iceberg was visually interesting and fairly photogenic, so on a lark, I just took a couple photos,” Harbeck said.
Interestingly, Harbeck spotted a second rectangular iceberg during the same 16 October 2018 flyby. In the photo above, you can actually see three icebergs of note: The now-famous freakishly geometric iceberg at far left (slightly obscured by the plane’s engines); the new tabular iceberg; and, off to the horizon, the A68 iceberg.
Yes, it’s that huge — the expanse along the horizon line is a free-floating iceberg measuring about 100km in length and about 30km wide.
Here are some other photos of tabular icebergs, many of which were produced by the Larsen C ice shelf during the A68 calving event.
NASA’s Operation IceBridge is an ongoing mission to monitor polar regions and track the planet’s global climate system. It’s currently in the midst of a five-week project to chart icebergs in the Northern Antarctic Peninsula, a mission that’s scheduled to conclude on November 18. There’s still plenty of time left in the project, so hopefully the scientists will uncover more Antarctic anomalies.
[NASA]