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For months, a gargantuan iceberg has been slowly spinning in one spot in the Southern Ocean — and it could continue to stay trapped in this vortex for quite some time, experts say.
As the world’s largest iceberg, the colossus A23a is of great interest to scientists, who have closely monitored the frozen block since it calved from Antarctica’s Filchner-Ronne ice shelf in 1986.
Now, the iceberg’s fate is unclear as it remains stuck as a result of a rare set of circumstances that scientists say is unprecedented.
The roughly 3,672-square-kilometer (1,418-square-mile) chunk of ice — slightly bigger than Rhode Island and more than twice the size of the city of London — drifted over a seamount and got stuck in a phenomenon known as a Taylor column, a spinning vortex of water caused by ocean currents hitting the underwater mountain.
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📷: Emily Broadwell/British Antarctic Survey; Mapping and Geographic Information Centre
