An iceberg about 790 square miles was detached from the Brunt shelf in Antarctica thanks to the growth of a vast ice rift, reported the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), whose research station is located in the area.
The iceberg, they reported, exceeds the area of New York City. Researchers had expected it to split in November 2020, when the first signs of cracks were discovered. Back then, the station’s 12-person team recorded that the North Rift chasm was heading for another large fissure near the Stancomb-Wills Glacier Tongue 22 mimes away.
In January 2021 the crack began to grow at a speed of about half a mile per day until the 500 foot thick floating ice shelf broke away. On the morning of February 26, the rift spread several mikes and released the huge chunk of ice in just a few hours.
Professor Dame Jane Francis, director of BAS, commented that the iceberg of the Brunt platform has been monitored for years with an automated network of high-precision GPS instruments around the station, which are responsible for measuring how it moves and deforms.
