Good news for penguins and seals: the world’s largest iceberg gets stuck and does not bump into the island

The IJsschots (with the name A23A) broke off in 1986 from mainland Antarctica. The mountain weighs almost a trillion ton and is about 3,500 square kilometers in size -four times the city of New York and twice large -London -, but soon got stuck in the Weddellzee again. In 2020, however, the ice mass became loose again. Since then, the colossus has been on drift, and faster and faster, until he got trapped in a current in which he was walking around for months and then came to a halt in shallow water.

Since a few years, scientists have therefore warned that the iceberg was en route to Zuid-Georgia, a British overseas island that is about 1,400 kilometers east of the Falkland Islands. A collision could have consequences for the animals on the island and the ecosystem. The cold melt water of the iceberg would ensure that fish go to other areas, so that no food would remain for the penguins and the seals.

Danger for fishermen

Now that the iceberg in shallow water appears to be stuck at just 80 kilometers from the island, the collision with the island may not be there. Presumably the IJsschots will start to break up slowly and therefore no longer pose danger, even though fishermen fear that they will be confronted with huge chunks of ice. That is also what ecologist Mark Belchier, who advises the government of Zuid-Georgia. “If the ice breaks, the icebergs will probably pose a danger to ships and limit the access of those ships to the local fish.”

Oceanographer Andrew Meijers from British Antarctic Survey looks at what will happen now, he says in a statement. “If the iceberg gets stuck there, we don’t expect it to have a significant effect on the local flora and fauna of Zuid-Georgia. In recent decades, the many icebergs that take this route through the southern ocean have quickly fallen out and melted. However, commercial fishing has been disturbed in the past and if the mountain breaks into smaller pieces, this can make fishing in the area more difficult and possibly make it more dangerous. ”

Food bomb

But if A23a falls apart and melts, that could also be a huge windfall for nature. In fact, huge amounts of nutrients are stored in the ice that will be released as soon as it melts. For life in the ocean that could be a godsend. “It’s like dropping a food bomb in the middle of an empty desert,” says Professor Nadine Johnston, also of the British Antarctic Survey.

According to Meijers, we have to wait and see how the iceberg will influence the local ecosystem. “Nutrients that arise through the iceberg and the melting can increase the availability of food for the entire regional ecosystem, also for the penguins and seals. Depending on whether they can still get there. “