- AUCKLAND (AFP) -- The world's
largest iceberg has split in two after being pummelled by a powerful storm,
the Antarctic Sun newspaper reported.
-
- B15, an 11,000sq km monster the size of Jamaica, was
one of the biggest icebergs seen until it broke up last month, the weekly
paper said.
-
- The title of world's largest iceberg now passes to C19A,
near a French Antarctic base, which at 5659sq km is about the size of Brunei.
-
- B15 has been blamed for the deaths of millions of penguins
since it broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf in March 2000, blocking their
access to the sea.
-
- Last Friday US researchers planted a weather and global
positioning tower on the newly formed B15A so that it could be more closely
tracked, the Antarctic Sun said.
-
- Penguin researcher Gerald Kooyman of Scripps Institution
of Oceanography told the newspaper that nearly 75 per cent of the emperor
penguins previously counted at Cape Crozier on Ross Island are no longer
around.
-
- Copyright 2003 News Limited.
-
- http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7764875%255E1702,00.html
|
