Important Facts For Prelims
Massive Iceberg Breaks off Antarctica
- 05 Oct 2019
- 1 min read
Recently, the Iceberg-D28 broke away from the Amery ice shelf in Antarctica.
- The breaking of iceberg D28 is part of the normal cycle of ice shelves, which are an extension of the ice cap thus the event is not related to climate change.
- The shelf is essentially the floating extension of a number of glaciers that flow off the land into the sea.
- Thus ice streams maintain equilibrium by losing such bergs to balance the input of snow upstream.
Iceberg D28
- It is a part of the Amery ice shelf which is the third-largest ice shelf in Antarctica.
- The name D28 comes from a classification system run by the US National Ice Center, which divides the Antarctic into quadrants.
- The D quadrant covers the longitudes 90 degrees East to 0 degrees, the Prime Meridian.
