World News for Students of English

10-03-2021 07:00

A huge iceberg has broken off from the northern section of the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica, almost 10 years after scientists discovered the first cracks.

Scientists expected the detaching of the iceberg to happen, after monitoring the area with GPS instruments and satellite imagery on a daily basis. They have been closely watching the many cracks and chasms that have formed in the shelf over the past years.

Recent data indicated that the region north of the new crack was very unstable, moving around 5 meters per day. Then, on Friday, February 26, the newer crack widened rapidly before finally breaking free from the rest of the floating ice shelf. The 150-meter-thick berg was compared in size to the English county of Bedfordshire, measuring to cover 1,270 square kilometers.

Satellite monitoring offers views of events that happen in remote regions, regardless of day or night, which is especially important through the long, dark winter months.

Difficult words: chasm (a deep gap in the earth’s surface), shelf (a flat area of ice or rock underwater), indicate (to show that something exists or is true).

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