Unbelievable moment iceberg the size of Isle of Wight is born

The idea of an iceberg being ‘born’ seems like the plot for some kind of animated film. But an unbelievable moment was captured with the birth of an absolute whopper.

Said to be as big as the entire Isle of Wight, a mega iceberg recently broke away from an area of the Antarctic where the UK’s Halley research station sits.

Expected to be named A-38, it has a total area of 146 square miles and is roughly 490 feet thick.

The mega iceberg was reported to have broken off the 150m thick Brunt Ice shelf on 20 May by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). This ‘birth’ happened after a crack suddenly appeared in the ice shelf a couple of weeks ago.

An incredible image from the BAS shows the huge chunk breaking off. And a video taken by a drone shows a fly over of the ‘Halloween Crack’.

It explained: “The iceberg calved after a 14km-long chasm formed at ninety degrees to the existing Halloween Crack. This follows a long period of weakening of the ice at the McDonald Ice Rumples.”

Yes, those also sound like names that belong in a cartoon film but they are the real ones.

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This recent ‘birth’ is the third major iceberg calving (that’s the breaking of ice chunks from the edge of a glacier) from this one area within the last four years.

BAS adds that it is ‘not thought to be linked to climate change’.

Halley was already moved back in 2016 due to concerns over the way local ice was behaving with the buildings shifted on skis to get them away from immediate trouble.

The iceberg is roughly the size of the Isle of Wight. (BAS)

The research station is currently unstaffed as since 2017, the staff have only been deployed there during the Antarctic summer (between November to March).

Dr Oliver Marsh is a glaciologist who has spent four seasons working on the Brunt Ice Shelf and he first detected this recent calving from GPS equipment.

“This calving was expected since the appearance of Halloween Crack eight years ago and reduces the total area of the ice shelf to its smallest extent since monitoring began,” he explained.

Scientists are looking at why so many bergs have been produced. (BAS)

“Tabular iceberg calving is part of the natural behaviour of ice shelves but often causes large changes in ice shelf geometry and can impact local ocean circulation. Our science and operational teams continue to monitor the ice shelf in real-time to ensure it is safe, and to maintain the delivery of the science we undertake at Halley”.

And a professor at Swansea University, Adrian Luckman, added: “Antarctica’s floating ice shelves grow gradually by ice flow and shrink episodically by iceberg calving.

"The balance between these two processes impacts their ability to hold back ice on land. It is concerning, therefore, that even in this relatively cold sector of Antarctica there have now been three large iceberg calvings in the last 3-4 years.

"The Brunt Ice Shelf is providing plenty of data to help us understand the calving process and predict the future evolution of these important ice bodies.”