It seems that the world’s largest iceberg has set off along the shore of the remote British island to millions of penguins and seals – potentially threatening local wildlife, but also providing an opportunity to explore such a rare “Megaberg”.
Known as an A23A, a massive slab plate – approximately the size of Rhoda Iceland and the scale of almost a trillion tonne – it was first reported to move towards southern Georgia a few months ago, which causes concern that it could collide with the island and disrupt the balance of local wildlife.
The Antarctica British Survey (BAS) announced on Tuesday that the iceberg had obviously hit a continental shelf surrounding southern Georgia, stuck about 73 kilometers from the island itself.
Whether the A23a will be stuck for a long time – and what impact could they have on the local wilderness – it is still in the air.
“It will be interesting to see what will happen now,” Andrew Meijers, Oceanographer with bass, said on Tuesday.
The Southern Georgia South Georgia island is a British foreign territory that lies north of Antarctica and about 1,850 kilometers east of South America. It supports the tiny, constant population of scientists and researchers, but is known for its abundance of wildlife, including five million seals in four different species and 65 million birds in 30 different species. Among them are the wandering Albatros, the largest flying bird in the world and several types of penguins.
One of the concerns among the researchers is that the iceberg could block wild animals from their usual paths to the feeding site, forcing them to travel longer distances and return less food to their young people.
But Meijers noted that the iceberg stored important micronutrients that are released when melted, and can also blur the nutrients located in deep water, which potentially uses the local ecosystem.
If this “high wall” of ice stimulates the productivity of the ocean, it could “enhance the population of local predators such as seals and penguins,” he said.
A 40-year trip
Starting AGROUND is the latest development in the dramatic, 40-year life of this ice giant.
A23A interrupted From the Filchner ice shelves of Antarctica in 1986, but remained stuck at the seafloor in the sea of Weddell in the next three decades.
After releasing himself in 2020 and riding the ocean current north next to the top of the Antarctic Peninsula, the A23A hit another snag: an ocean vortex called Taylor column, which captured it in place for months.
Ever since he was leaving the vortex, the A23a slowly spirally spiral to southern Georgia.
The Government of southern Georgia and the island of the South Sandwich said in a statement In January, he “carefully monitored” the progress of the A23a -a that, although shipping and fishing could influence, “influences on wild animals would probably be localized and transient.”
Satellite paintings showed that the iceberg was approaching the continental shelf in late February, before it seemed freezing in the place as it headed to the building, and there was no major movement from March 1.
What could happen
Donavan Tremblay, an LED specialist with a Canadian coastal guard, told CBC News if it were “very possible” A23a could move again because it was more exposed to storms near the island that could shake it or break it.
But “that could stay for a while,” he said.
Although the iceberg is relatively rare, this is not the first time Megaberg has threatened southern Georgia. In 2020, an iceberg called A68a – previously the largest world, and the sixth largest recorded iceberg of all time – separated near the island after influencing the shelf.
AND 2022 studies He found that the A68a had released 152 gigatonic fresh water and nutrients in the ocean near southern Georgia. This has changed the concentration of the surface of the surface water enough to persist more than two months after the melt of the iceberg, according to the separate 2023 studies.
Scientists are still digging the influence that has had on a local ecosystem – including whales, seals and plankton levels – and A23A help.
One focus that Meijers pointed out that the release of nutrients could help create phytoplacton flowering and potentially increase the ability of the ocean to catch more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Other scientists want to know what happened below the A23A, which would insert huge scars into the seabed and potentially triggered underwater landslides, says Alex Normandeau, a scientist from the geological research of Canada.
“What are the consequences on marine geology?” he asked. “Because it affects the habitats that are there, where the iceberg is grounded, but also affects sedimentary suspension and underwater processes.”
The iceberg that are separated from ice leaves and ice leaves and ice in the north are a regular part of the Leda Life cycle in Antarctica, but Meijers says data have shown that ice shelves have been losing larger mass in the last 20 years – scientists have attributed development to climate change.
“These are burning and active areas of research in Ba -ui elsewhere,” he said.
