Petermann Ice Island 2010 poses no immediate threat, say ice experts...

It is old news by now that a 250 square kilometre iceberg broke off Greenland on 05 August 2010.
Check out the NASA satellite photo below, where the bulk of ice is clearly visible as being separated from the rest of Greenland:

The debate is already on the go, as to what the giant iceberg will do next, and whether or not it will affect or endanger ships, oil platforms and the like as it makes its way away from Greenland.

Estimates are saying that a problem could only potentially arise in 1-4 years time - that is how long it could take for the iceberg to reach anything that it could pose a threat to.

Add to that the constant erosion taking place from sea water and weather conditions, and the possibility of the iceberg getting stuck in a bay or somewhere else, and the iceberg threat diminishes even further.

We shall just have to wait and see.

The scary bit for me, is the sheer size of the damn thing - 250 square kilometres works out to a mass approximately 16km x 16km in size - can you imagine a chunk of ice that size floating freely in the ocean?

That is no small iceberg - hence the naming of the colossal mass - "Petermann Ice Island 2010" - Petermann Glacier being the glacier from which the iceberg separated.

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