The Brunt ice shelf broke off last January from Antarctica, from the Chasm-1 crack, and currently occupies the second position in the list of large masses of floating ice on the planet. It is iceberg A-81 and in the last two months it has traveled about 150 kilometers in a westerly direction, in the waters of the Antarctic Ocean, dragged by the marine currents of the Weddell Sea.
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS, a British scientific entity attached to the Natural Environment Research Council) has released the first aerial images (from airplanes) of this great iceberg, captured in recent weeks at various points along its contour. Until now, images of this large piece of floating ice had been taken from satellites.
The teams that have flown over the A-81 are part of the BAS Halley Research Station, which is relatively close to this detached ice. "The images show the dynamic nature of the iceberg, surrounded by smaller icebergs that also broke off," explains this scientific institution on its blog on the Internet.
The A-81 has a surface area of 1,550 km², that is, an area equivalent to three times that of the entire territory of Andorra or 15 times the surface area of Barcelona (101.35 km²). The BAS explains that Brunt is "one of the most closely monitored ice shelves on the planet", in part because it is home to the BAS Halley Research Station, relocated in 2016 precisely to avoid damage from cracking ice. . “The monitoring carried out by the BAS glaciologists shows that the area of the research station is currently not significantly affected by the A-81 calving. This fragmentation "is a natural process along the Antarctic coast, and the A-81 is the second large iceberg in the region in two years."
Oliver Marsh, a BAS glaciologist, explained that experts from this scientific institution have been monitoring the Brunt Ice Shelf and the chasms formed through it for more than a decade. “Since glaciologists first observed the enlargement of Chasm-1 in 2012, BAS science and operations teams have been anticipating calving. High-precision GPS instruments, as well as satellite data, have been used to monitor the widening chasm, and in 2016 BAS took the precaution of moving the Halley Research Station inland to protect it.”
The large floating masses of ice, in the case of Antarctica, receive a name that is formed by an initial capital letter, which corresponds to the Antarctic quadrant in which they have been formed or in which they have been sighted for the first time, followed by a correlative number (since this registration system was launched). In the case of A-81 (A81), it is iceberg number 81 formed in the Antarctic quadrant A, which occupies the zone 0-90W (Bellinghausen/Weddell Sea).
