So, here’s a little trivia question. What’s the largest floating object in the world? A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier? Nope. Liz Taylor snorkeling (sorry, I watched a lot of Saturday Night Live growing up)? Close, but, again, no. Shell’s largest supertanker? Three strikes, you’re out.
The world’s largest floating object is cold, hard and made of ice. It’s known as (drumroll, please) B-15A and it’s the largest remaining chunk of a monstrous iceberg that broke free of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 2000. The original berg–known as B15–was about the size of Jamaica (but a lot colder, with no rum drinks, sandy beaches, or swingers resorts). B-15A is smaller, but still country-sized, measuring in at more than 70 miles long, with a total area close in size to Luxembourg.
Why am I telling you this now? Well, it’s a good piece if info to take into a bar. But more important, B-15A, which has been stuck aground on a seamount in McMurdo Sound, has finally broken free and is drifting toward a long pier of land-attached ice known as the Drygalski Ice Tongue (great name, eh?). It might or might not scrape past it, and the eggheads at the European Space Agency (from which I’m cribbing all this info; why can’t NASA be so useful?) are on the edge of their chairs, full of fear for the poor innocent Drygalski Ice Tongue. Here’s Mark Drinkwater, of ESA’s Ice/Oceans Unit:
“The widest part of the iceberg would now appear to have successfully negotiated the narrow channel between the shallow seamount to its west–where it was formerly grounded–and Franklin Island to the east.
“It was now achieved a critical overlap with the end of the Drygalski ice pier, so far without touching. It would now appear that any contact–if at all–between the drifting iceberg and the land-fast floating ice tongue is likely to be a consequence of being ‘brushed’ or ‘bumped’ by the broader trailing end of the iceberg, much like the wide turns made by a long trailer behind a truck or the stern of a ship.”
Folks, this is about as exciting as it gets in the bergy business. Here are some photos showing the pretty much undetectable movement of the bottle-shaped B-15A. Try not to hyperventilate…
March 15: “Ramming speed…!”
March 16: “Uhh, still ramming speed. Check back later…”
The Earthist Chronicles 