What are Icebergs and how are they formed?


What are Icebergs and how are they formed?

     Icebergs are floating masses of ice that break off from glaciers. So far as the North Atlantic is concerned, most of these menaces to navigation are 'calved’ in Greenland. This largest island in the world, having an area of 21,66,000 square kiometre consists mainly of one huge ice field, and it is estimated that 1,00,00,00,000 tonnes of ice are forced by pressure into the sea every twelve months.

Fortunately, in the majority of cases the bergs melt before they can do material damage, but a considerable number reach the ships’ routes. The most terrible disaster of iceberg hitting a ship occurred in April 1912, when the British ocean liner Titanic (then the largest ship in the world) struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage. ln that year over 1,200 bergs had been reported in the Atlantic. lt is the submerged part of the iceberg that constitutes the chief danger, as only about one-ninth of its bulk is visible. From about the middle of March until the end of August is the period when icebergs are most likely to be met.


     In 1913, the year following the Titanic disaster, the lnternational lce Patrol, maintained by the United States Coast Guard, was instituted. The expense is shared by fourteen countries. The C-130 Hercules aircraft patrol the danger zone (photo, above) and warn the ships by giving them data such as exact position of the iceberg, its size, and its speed. There is reason to believe that the mysterious disappearance of many ships previous to the founding of the lnternational lce Patrol was due to collision with icebergs.

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