Ukrainian polar explorers released pictures of a giant iceberg that has been drifting near the Akademik Vernadskyi Antarctic station for about a month. Its length reaches 1,285 meters – the same length as Khreshchatyk Street in Kyiv. The height of the visible part of the iceberg is up to 80 meters, and the width is about 90 meters. About this informs National Antarctic Science Center.
“This is my sixth wintering on the Vernadskyi, and I have never seen such huge icebergs here. We watch it right from the windows of the station, although it drifts several tens of kilometers from our island.” Oleksandr Poluden, head of the Ukrainian Antarctic expedition, shared his impressions.
Experts believe that this iceberg probably broke off from one of the shelf glaciers – George VI or Wilkins, which are located further south. Ukrainian scientists will continue to monitor its further movement.
For comparison, the largest iceberg in history — B-15 — had an area of 11,000 square kilometers (almost 300 km long), but melted over time. Currently, the title of the largest belongs to iceberg A23, the area of which is about 3.1 thousand square kilometers – this would be enough to accommodate four capitals of Ukraine. Iceberg A23a stood in one place for many years, stuck to the seabed, but in March of this year it moved, ran aground and gradually began to collapse.
Photo: AntarcticCenter
