UK research trip to study giant floating iceberg

A team of scientists will set off next month on a research mission to find out impact of a giant floating iceberg on wildlife and marine life on a sub-Antarctic island, British Antarctic Survey said Tuesday.  huge iceberg -- size of U.S. state of Delaware -- has been floating rth since it broke away from Antarctica's Larsen C ice shelf in 2017.

It is w about 75 kilometers (47 miles) from island of South Georgia, and scientists are concerned over risks it poses to wildlife in area if it grounds near island. South Georgia is home to colonies of tens of thousands of penguins and 6 million fur seals, which could be threatened by iceberg during ir breeding season.

waters near island are also one of world's largest marine protected areas and house more marine species than Galapagos.  research ship RRS James Cook is expected to depart from Falkland Islands for iceberg in late January.

Two underwater robotic gliders will be deployed from ship and spend several months collecting data to help investigate impact of freshwater from melting ice on region.

iceberg — named A-68a — is travelling at varying speeds depending on local conditions, but at its fastest was travelling about 20 kilometers (12 miles) a day.

Geraint Tarling, an ecologist at British Antarctic Survey, said "South Georgia is an amazing biodiversity hotspot." "This iceberg has a keel, a depth underneath it that's about 200 metres. And so what that might do, as it goes onto shelf of South Georgia, it might start scouring sea bed, and so all those amazing communities of benthic organisms are going to start getting scoured."

"Also, just having a physical obstacle like this in waters around South Georgia, could present a lot of problems for things like penguins and seals. When y're trying to get out to ir feeding grounds, particularly at this time of year" he ded.

Povl Abrahamsen, who is leing mission, said it rmally takes years to plan such marine research trips. But mission is me possible because officials recognize urgency to act quickly. "We're taking this opportunity to go to iceberg, do measurements around re and deploy two underwater robotic gliders as well to measure physical impacts of berg on local environment," he said.

Representative Im