![]() According to the team's research, the iceberg collided briefly with the seafloor near South Georgia - however, A68a had thinned so much by that point that it didn't get stuck. ![]() Unlucky animals could have been crushed to death in the collision, while countless others could have lost access to their regular feeding and foraging routes, Live Science previously reported.įortunately, A68a never made landfall near the island - but, the new study shows, it came perilously close. Scientists feared that the still-massive iceberg would smash head-on into South Georgia island, a British overseas territory that's home to large penguin and seal populations. For three months between November 2020 and January 2021, the iceberg reached its peak melt rate, losing more than 150 billion tons (136 metric tons) of ice in that period. ![]() There, the iceberg's melt rate increased by nearly eightfold, as the comparatively warm waters lapped away at the iceberg's base and edges. Only when A68a drifted north into the Scotia Sea did the real mass-loss begin. "Because A68a took a common route across the Drake Passage, we hope to learn more about icebergs taking a similar trajectory, and how they influence the polar oceans." "This is a huge amount of meltwater, and the next thing we want to learn is whether it had a positive or negative impact on the ecosystem around South Georgia," lead study author Anne Braakmann-Folgmann, a researcher at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling in the U.K., said in a statement. There, while the berg appeared to be headed for a direct collision with South Georgia island, iceberg A68a lost more than 152 billion tons (138 billion metric tons) of fresh water in just three months - a mass equal to an incomprehensible volume of water that could fill more than 60 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to the study authors. Using observations from five satellites, the study authors calculated how much the iceberg's area and thickness changed as it drifted north through Antarctica's Weddell Sea and into the relatively warm waters of the Scotia Sea.
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