Iceberg B-15, Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica

  • Credit

    Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Science Team

A massive iceberg (known as B-15) broke off the Ross Ice Shelf near Roosevelt Island in Antarctica in mid-March 2000. Among the largest ever observed, the B-15 iceberg is approximately 300 km long and 40 km wide an area about twice the size of the state of Delaware. The iceberg was formed from glacier ice moving off the Antarctic continent. The ice calved along pre-existing cracks in the Ross Ice Shelf.

B-17, a comparitively small chunk, is observed in the upper left of this image as B-16, a piece that calved in mid-March from the lower right near B-15, floats out to sea.
(Resolution: 300 meters; MODIS Data Type: MODIS-PFM; MODIS Band Combination: 1, 4, 3)

Metadata

  • Sensor

    Terra/MODIS

  • Visualization Date

    2000-04-21