1,500-Square-Mile Glacier Approaching S. Georgia; Could Ground w/i A Week, W. Major Wildlife Mortality Likely To Follow

The world’s largest iceberg – a behemoth more than twice the size of London – is drifting toward a remote island where scientists say it could run aground and threaten penguins and seals. The gigantic wall of ice is moving slowly from Antarctica on a potential collision course with South Georgia, a crucial wildlife breeding ground.

Satellite imagery suggested that unlike previous “megabergs” this rogue was not crumbling into smaller chunks as it plodded through the Southern Ocean, said Andrew Meijers, a physical oceanographer at the British Antarctic Survey. He said predicting its exact course was difficult but prevailing currents suggested the colossus would reach the shallow continental shelf around South Georgia in two to four weeks. But what might happen next is anyone’s guess, he said.

It could avoid the shelf and get carried into open water beyond South Georgia, a British overseas territory some 1,400 km (870 miles) east of the Falklands Islands. Or it could strike the sloping bottom, getting stuck for months or break up into pieces.

Meijers said this scenario could seriously impede seals and penguins trying to feed and raise their young on the island. “Icebergs have grounded there in the past and that has caused significant mortality to penguin chicks and seal pups,” he said.

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It is summer in South Georgia and resident penguins and seals along its southern coastline are undertaking foraging expeditions in the frosty waters to bring back enough food to fatten their young. “If the iceberg parks there, it’ll either block physically where they feed from, or they’ll have to go around it,” said Meijers. “That burns a huge amount of extra energy for them, so that’s less energy for the pups and chicks, which causes increased mortality.” The seal and penguin populations on South Georgia have already been having a “bad season” with an outbreak of bird flu “and that [iceberg] would make it significantly worse”, he said.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/24/iceberg-threatens-remote-island-penguins-seals