PARIS: The world’s largest iceberg — a behemoth more than twice the size of London — is drifting toward a remote island where scientists say it could run aground and threaten penguins and seals.

The gigantic wall of ice is moving slowly from Antarctica on a potential collision course with South Georgia, a crucial wildlife breeding ground.

Satellite imagery suggested that unlike previous “megabergs” this rogue was not crumbling into smaller chunks as it plodded through the Southern Ocean, Andrew Meijers, a physical oceanographer at the British Antarctic Survey, said on Friday.

He said predicting its exact course was difficult but prevailing currents suggested the colossus would reach the shallow continental shelf around South Georgia in two to four weeks. But what might happen next is anyone’s guess, he said.

It could avoid the shelf and get carried into open water beyond South Georgia, a British overseas territory some 1,400 kilometres (870 miles) east of the Falklands Islands. Or it could strike the sloping bottom, getting stuck for months or break up into pieces.

Meijers said this scenario could seriously impede seals and penguins trying to feed and raise their young on the island. “Icebergs have grounded there in the past and that has caused significant mortality to penguin chicks and seal pups,” he said.

‘White wall’

Roughly 3,500 square kilometres across, the world’s biggest and oldest iceberg known as A23a calved from the Antarctic shelf in 1986. It remained stuck for over 30 years until finally breaking free in 2020, its lumbering journey north sometimes delayed by ocean forces that kept it spinning in place.

Meijers — who encountered the iceberg face to face while leading a scientific mission in late 2023 — described “a huge white cliff, 40 or 50 metres high, that stretches from horizon to horizon”. “It’s just like this white wall. It’s very sort of Game of Thrones-esque, actually,” he said, describing “feeling like it would never end”.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2025