SCIENTISTS FEAR ICEBERG MIGHT SLAM INTO AN ISLAND OF PENGUINS

South Georgia, a remote island in the South Atlantic, hosts millions of penguins in some of the largest colonies on the planet live out their days amid a pristine environment shared with only a handful of humans.

An ex-whaling outpost, today it sits in over one million square kilometers of marine protected area, allowing species to thrive despite its rugged, sometimes hostile climate, CNN reported.

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, a UK Overseas Territory, is not normally the center of news. But then, it's not every day a 3,900 square kilometer iceberg weighing hundreds of billions of metric tons bears down on you, threatening to upset the ecological applecart.

Gliding across the Scotia Sea, iceberg A68a calved from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 2017, but only entered open waters this year. Only 200 meters (656 feet) deep, it is relatively thin for a tabular iceberg of its size, say scientists.

That increases the likelihood of fragmentation, but also means it's liable to clear the 300-meter (984-feet) deep continental shelf around 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of the island, allowing it to move closer to land.

Although mostly amassed on the shallower north side of the island, South Georgia's penguins could soon be confronting the iceberg. "We think it's likely that A68a will go around the southeastern end of the island's shelf before being taken along the northern side," says Sally Thorpe, an ecosystem modeler at the BAS.

As of December 9, the iceberg was approximately 50 kilometers from the nearest area of continental shelf with a depth of 200 meters, according to Thorpe. Comparing A68a's position to historical iceberg data, all but one had moved onto the South Georgia shelf (some of which had grounded) or followed current flows around the edge of the shelf in an anticlockwise direction.

The main concern scientists have is that the iceberg could become stranded and remain intact close to colonies for a prolonged period of time. "Not only could foraging routes of predators and the seafloor community be affected by the presence of the iceberg, there will be also be effects from the iceberg affecting local ocean circulation ... from the amount of cooler, fresh water entering the ocean as the iceberg continues to melt," says Thorpe.

WEEKLY FEATURE

CHINKEE TAN SEEKS TO CREATE 100 MILLIONAIRES IN 2021