r some time, scientists who focus on Antarctica have been
watching the progression of a large crack in one of the world's great
ice shelves - Larsen C, the most northern major ice shelf of the
Antarctic peninsula, and the fourth largest Antarctic ice shelf overall.
Larsen
C, according to the British Antarctic Survey, is "slightly smaller than
Scotland." It's called an ice "shelf" because the entirety of this
country-sized area is covered by 350 meter thick ice that is floating on
top of deep ocean waters.
The crack in Larsen C grew around 30
kilometers (18.6 miles) in length between 2011 and 2015. And as it grew,
also became wider - by 2015, yawning some 200 meters in length. Since
then, growth has only continued - and now, a team of researchers
monitoring Larsen C say that with the intense winter polar night over
Antarctica coming to an end, they've been able to catch of glimpse of
what happened to the crack during the time when it could not be observed
by satellite.
The result was astonishing.
The rift had grown
another 22 kilometers (13.67 miles) since it was last observed in March
2016, and has widened to about 350 meters, report researchers from
Project MIDAS, a British Antarctic Survey funded collaboration of
researchers from Swansea and Aberystwyth Universities in Wales, and
other institutions. The full length of the rift is now 130 km, or over
80 miles.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=11699386
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