Iceberg A-38


The A-38 was a large iceberg that split from the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 1998. The iceberg, more than 144 km long and 48 km wide, was the largest iceberg that had been observed in a decade.

Split of A-38B

By October 22, 1998, A-38B had started to break off the original iceberg. The pieces drifted about north to around South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic. On April 12, 2004, the A-38B iceberg was about long. The next time MODIS flew over the iceberg on 15 April, A-38B had broken in half. By 17-18 April, the eastern half of the iceberg had moved quickly north and turned west. The western half of the iceberg seemed to stay in place. Another section of the A-38 iceberg, A-39D, was covered in meltwater ponds as it drifted past South Georgia Island in late January 2004, the height of the summer in the Southern Hemisphere.