Glaciology experts have issued evidence that a large section of the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica, which is home to the British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Research Station, is about break off.
Glaciology experts have issued evidence that a large section of the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica, which is home to the British Antarctic Survey’s Halley Research Station, is about break off.
The rifting started several years ago and is now approaching its final phase. In anticipation of the iceberg breaking away, the research station, which is currently unmanned, has been relocated to a safer location on the ice shelf, meaning there is no danger posed to personnel.
The iceberg, measuring over 1,500 square kilometres – about twice the size of New York City – is expected to break away from the Brunt Ice Shelf in as little as a few months, when two large cracks which have been growing over the past seven years meet.
Now academics from Northumbria University, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, in collaboration with scientists from ENVEO, a remote sensing company in Austria, have submitted new research to the journal The Cryosphere, which shows that the break-off is part of the ice shelf’s natural lifecycle, and that similar events may have occurred in the past.
Read more at Northumbria University
Image: This is the Halloween Crack, which was discovered on 31 October 2016. (Credit: Jan de Rydt, Northumbria University)
