A giant iceberg estimated to be 200 kilometres long has broken off the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 up among the big ones,鈥 says Christopher Doake from the British Antarctic Survey. 鈥淵ou鈥檇 expect ones of that size every 20 or 30 years or so.鈥 The breakaway, spotted by the Antarctica Meteorological Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison last week, brings the shelf back down to the size it was in 1911 when Robert Scott鈥檚 team first mapped it. Despite the iceberg鈥檚 size, researchers suspect it is just a normal part of the shelf鈥檚 鈥渃alving鈥 process.
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