The Antarctic Is Shedding an Iceberg the Size of Delaware

Anyone blindly walking across the Antarctic Peninsula might be in for a heck of a fall. A stupendous rift reaching across the land measures 300-feet wide and one-third of a mile deep, a drop equivalent to the height of seven stacked cruise ships.

The icy canyon, which has been lengthening in the past months, is a sign the Larsen C Ice Shelf is about to shed a ton of mass. Specifically, it’s going to pop off an iceberg roughly the size of Delaware. That may or may not be a bad thing for the world: While the Antarctic is constantly losing and regrowing ice, the pace at which it happens can be a contributing factor toward future sea-level rise.