![]() The images were created by employees of the United States Government as part of their official duties or prepared by contractors as "works for hire" for NSF. Images credited to the National Science Foundation, a federal agency, are in the public domain. All media in the gallery are intended for personal, educational and nonprofit/non-commercial use only. ![]() Images and other media in the National Science Foundation Multimedia Gallery are available for use in print and electronic material by NSF employees, members of the media, university staff, teachers and the general public. See other images like this on your iPhone or iPad download NSF Science Zone on the Apple App Store. 21, several large pieces were seen just 60 kilometers off the coast of Timaru, New Zealand, with the largest measuring about 1.8 kilometers wide and 120 feet high. These were spotted by an Air Force fisheries patrol on Nov. It has since moved farther up north and broken up into more pieces. The largest piece is still named B-15A (its surface is now approximately 1700 kilometers2), while three additional pieces were named B-15P, B-15M and B-15N. Iceberg B-15A sailed on along the coast, leaving McMurdo Sound until it ran aground off Cape Adare in Victoria Land (a region of Antarctica lying south of New Zealand), where it broke into several smaller pieces on Oct. The collision broke off the tip of Drygalski in mid-April. Iceberg update: In 2005, prevailing currents took B-15A slowly past the Drygalski ice tongue (an iceberg located in northern McMurdo Sound). Plans are to track B-15A until it disintegrates. The goal is to learn more about what causes icebergs to calve, how and why they drift, what happens when the icebergs warm, and why they are producing previously unknown tremors that are picked up on seismometers as far away as Tahiti. Researchers are using global positioning systems (GPS), weather monitoring stations and four seismometers to track several icebergs. Scientists believe that the enormous piece of ice broke away as part of a long-term natural cycle (every 50 to 100 years or so) in which the shelf - roughly the size of Texas - sheds pieces, similar to human fingernails growing and breaking off. ![]() The northern edge of the giant iceberg B-15A, a fragment of a much larger iceberg (B-15) that broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, in March 2000. ![]()
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