Giant ‘Berg Heading for Western Australia

A 55-sq-mile iceberg measuring some 12 miles long by five miles wide — twice the size of Manhattan — is drifting slowly north from Antarctica towards Western Australia. Known as B17B, the iceberg was spotted by Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist Neal Young using satellite images taken by NASA and the European Space Agency. Young said the iceberg is about 1,000 miles south-southwest of the west Australian coast and moving northeast with the ocean current and prevailing wind.

"B17B is a very significant one in that it has drifted so far north while still largely intact," Young said. "It’s one of the biggest sighted at those latitudes — now 48.8º S and 107.5º E. As the water warms up, the iceberg is thinning and slowly breaking up, resulting in hundreds more smaller icebergs in the area.

B17B and several other massive icebergs calved from the eastern end of the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000.