KQED's Climate Watch » Antarctica http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch KQED's multimedia series providing in-depth coverage of climate-related science and policy issues from a California perspective. Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:37:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 Death Rattle of an Iceberg http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/2011/01/24/death-rattle-of-an-iceberg/ http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/2011/01/24/death-rattle-of-an-iceberg/#comments Tue, 25 Jan 2011 01:31:48 +0000 Gretchen Weber http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/?p=10517 Continue reading →]]>

Iceberg B-15A was 76 miles long and 17 miles wide. (Phot0: Josh Landis, NSF)

I know it’s only January but my vote for the year’s Really Cool Sound Award: A  massive iceberg cracks up.

Occasional Climate Watch contributor Tom Banse reports today for Oregon Pubic Broadcasting about a just-released recording of a massive iceberg cracking, creaking, snapping, and groaning as it broke up in 2005 off the coast of Antarctica.  The recording has been condensed, so that you can listen to the five-hour process in just two minutes.

According to Seeyle Martin, the University of Washington scientist who released the recording, the iceberg was 76 miles long and 17 miles wide — about the size of Puget Sound. It shattered when it hit an underwater shoal.  Martin says the sound was recorded by seismic equipment 700 miles away at the South Pole.

]]> http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/2011/01/24/death-rattle-of-an-iceberg/feed/ 0 012411_iceberg_small