Where is iceberg b 15 now

Though the ice chunk is currently According to a press release , a large fracture runs down its center, and smaller pieces are breaking from the edges. If the berg gets too small, the NIC can no longer track it. The other fragments will likely soon meet the same fate as they continue northward toward the equator. But as Specktor reports, after traveling roughly three-quarters of the way around the continent, the iceberg encountered additional currents near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

These prevented it from drifting through the Drake Passage—a channel that runs between the southern tip of South America and Antarctica. But the iceberg may not be tracked much longer if it splinters into smaller pieces.

A large fracture is visible along the center of the berg, and smaller pieces are splintering off from the edges. A previous image showed BZ farther south in October , after it had ridden the coastal countercurrent about three-quarters of the way around Antarctica bringing it to the Southern Ocean off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Currents prevented the berg from continuing through the Drake Passage; instead, BZ cruised north into the southern Atlantic Ocean. When the May photograph was acquired, the berg was about nautical miles northwest of the South Georgia islands.

Icebergs that make it this far have been known to rapidly melt and end their life cycles here. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 54 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed.

If these collisions are abrupt and powerful enough, they can fracture the crystalline structure of the ice and cause linear fractures like in BT, and in the rectangular icebergs spotted earlier this month. The NASA site Earth Matters posted a photo of the iceberg partly obscured by clouds, and asked people to identify the object. Among the guesses? An aircraft carrier called the USS Gerald Ford , a body of water with sky reflections, and many correct guesses.

Skip to content. Like this: Like Loading