World's Largest Iceberg, Weighing Nearly 1 Trillion Tons, Runs Aground Near Sub-Antarctic Island

The world’s largest iceberg has run aground off the coast of a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean, according to British researchers.

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) announced on Tuesday, March 4 that the A23a iceberg is currently grounded on the continental shelf about 90 kilometers (56 miles) from the island of South Georgia in the sub-Antarctic area.

The A23a iceberg is twice the size of Greater London, and slightly smaller than Rhode Island, according to CNN.

Dr. Andrew Meijers, an oceanographer at BAS, said experts do not expect the iceberg, which weighs nearly a trillion tons, to disrupt local wildlife if it remains aground, per BAS. However, he added, it could make operations “more difficult and potentially hazardous” for commercial fisheries.

“It will be interesting to see what will happen now,” Meijers explained. "From a scientific perspective we are keen to see how the iceberg will affect the local ecosystem."

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The A23a iceberg was grounded for more than 30 years after splitting from Antarctica’s Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986, according to BAS.

Since 2020, however, the mega-iceberg has been “drifting with the currents of the Southern Ocean towards South Georgia,” they added. A23a “has been watched closely” by BAS since then.

Meijers said the iceberg “appears to be maintaining its structure and has not yet broken up into smaller chunks, as previous ‘megabergs’ have done.”

“Now it’s grounded, it is even more likely to break up due to the increased stresses, but this is practically impossible to predict.,” Meijers explained. “Large bergs have made it a long way north before … but they all inevitably break up and melt quickly after.”

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There “could be an upside” to the iceberg running aground, according to Meijers. “If the berg is stimulating ocean productivity, this could actually boost populations of local predators like seals and penguins,” he explained.

"It's like dropping a nutrient bomb into the middle of an empty desert," said Professor Nadine Johnston, per BBC News.

Ice shelves have lost around 6 trillion tons of mass since the year 2000, Meijers said, per BAS.

The loss of ice shelf mass, he added, “has significant implications” on the ocean’s circulation “due to the addition of freshwater, acceleration of sea level rise … and possible irreversible ‘tipping points’, particularly in the vulnerable west Antarctic.”

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Still, Professor Huw Griffiths is amazed by how long A23a has managed to survive, according to BBC News.

“It's very surprising to see that A23a has lasted this long and only lost about a quarter of its area," Griffiths said.

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