by wildcherry on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 | News, World

An iceberg nearly 87 square miles in size and weighing 200 billion tonnes is drifting towards Australia.
The whopping ice slab, which is nearly twice the size of Hong Kong - or half the size of the Isle of Wight - was picked up using satellite imagery. Its very existence is being hailed as once-in-a-century event.
It’s already far closer to Australia than icebergs normally travel, about 1700km south-southwest of Western Australia.

Glaciologist Neal Young said he was not aware of such a large iceberg being found in the area since the days when 19th century clipper ships sailed the trade routes between Britain and Australia.

Mr Young added that the iceberg, known as B17B, was originally thought to measure about three times its current size, but then broke into two smaller pieces.
He said: ‘This one has survived in the open ocean for about a year. In that time its slowly been coming up to the north and north east in the general direction of Western Australia.’
The sighting of the floating behemoth comes after two massive icebergs were spotted further east, off Australia’s Macquarie Island, followed by more than 100 smaller ice chunks heading for New Zealand.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1234497/Iceberg-twice-size-Hong-Kong-spotted-drifting-south-Australia.html#ixzz0ZL8ij0QT

Tags: B17B, iceberg, iceberg australia