When the Titanic sunk, newspapers estimated the iceberg鈥檚 size in feet; today, an iceberg that broke off of Antarctica is being measured in miles.
According to an iceberg measuring 270 square miles that was once part of the Pine Island Glacier separated from Antarctica earlier this month. The floating mass could pose a hazard for maritime shipping between South Africa and South America.
鈥淚t鈥檚 about the size of Chicago, or Singapore,鈥 Robert Marsh, an oceanographer at the University of Southampton, told . 鈥淚t could stay around the Antarctic coast, which poses no real issues.鈥
But currents could easily push it north where it could disrupt international commerce.
鈥淎s it melts, it will break up and this could create real problems to shipping as the pieces will cover a wider area,鈥 Grant Bigg, of the University of Sheffield, also told in
awarded Marsh and Biggs 拢50,000 ($80,585) in an emergency grant to study the iceberg and predict it鈥檚 likely path.