Huge Iceberg Could Disrupt Shipping

An iceberg about twice the size of Delaware has broken from the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica and could drift into shipping lanes around the South Polar region. The elongated iceberg, detected by satellites, measures 183 miles by 22 miles and is among the largest ever observed, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF), which coordinates American research at the South Pole. Scientists estimated that the iceberg surface area is about 4,247 square miles. Delaware is 1,932 square miles. "This is a very big iceberg -- close to a record if not a new record," says Matthew Lazzara, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Antarctic Meteorological Research Center, which is supported by the NSF. An announcement said the iceberg formed from glacial ice moving off the Antarctic continent and into the sea. Calving of the iceberg moved the boundary of the Ross Ice