Drygalski Glacier
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The iceberg C-16 collides with Drygalski ice tongue on 30 March 2006. |
The
Drygalski ice tongue or
Drygalski Barrier or
Drygalski Glacier Tongue is a
glacier in
Antarctica, located on the
Scott Coast, in the northern
McMurdo Sound of
Antarctica's
Ross Dependency, 240 kilometres (150
miles) north of
Ross Island. The
ice tongue is located at . Drygalski Ice Tongue, being a stable feature by the standards of Antarctica's icefloes, stretches 70 kilometres out to sea from the
David Glacier, reaching the sea from a valley in the
Prince Albert Mountains of
Victoria Land. Drygalski Ice Tongue ranges from 9 to 15
miles wide. The glacier flows into what used to be the
Larsen-A Ice Shelf. This disintegrated in January of 1995. Subsequently, the ice flow on the Drygalski glacier increased threefold.
Captain
Robert Falcon Scott, leader of the
British National Antarctic Expedition (BrNAE) (1901-1904), discovered Drygalski Ice Tongue in January
1902 and named it for Prof.
Erich von Drygalski, a contemporary
German explorer then in
Antarctica. Drygalski Ice Tongue became well established by the name Drygalski Ice Tongue prior to initiation of systematic application of common specific names to a glacier and its glacier tongue. Although this feature is a glacier tongue, the generic term ice tongue has been retained in the name to reduce ambiguity.
Drygalski Ice Tongue is thought to be at least 4000 years old.
On March-April 2005, a 3000 km² iceberg designated
B-15A collided with the ice tongue breaking off two pieces, each one with a surface of about 70 km². This iceberg is a remnant of
Iceberg B-15, which calved from the
Ross Ice Shelf in 2000. Scientists are also concerned for several
penguin colonies which have been isolated from the open sea by the two large bodies of ice.
At the end of March 2006, another iceberg coming from
Ross Ice Shelf, named C-16, collided with the ice tongue breaking off a large additional piece (more than 100 km²).
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Envisat: Antarctica B-15A iceberg monitoring in Ross Sea
