World’s Largest, Oldest Iceberg Runs Aground Near Antarctic Island

After a leisurely five-year journey, the ginormous iceberg A23a appears to have run aground near the Southern Ocean’s South Georgia Island, according to the British Antarctic Survey. A23a weighs nearly a trillion metric tons, making it the world’s largest active iceberg. It calved from Antarctica in 1986, making it the world’s oldest berg. And now, after drifting for half a decade, A23a has grounded itself about 56 miles (90 kilometers) south of South Georgia. “If the iceberg stays grounded, we don’t expect it to significantly affect the local wildlife of South Georgia,” said Andrew Meijers, an oceanographer at the British Antarctic Survey, in a survey release. “In the last few decades, the many icebergs that end up taking this route through the Southern Ocean soon break up, disperse and melt. Commercial fisheries have been disrupted in the past however, and as the berg breaks into smaller pieces, this might make fishing operations in the area both more difficult and potentially haza ... Read full article.