Antarctica: Clash of the ice titans may not happen

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2005

PARIS (AFP) — An expected smashup between an Antarctic tongue of ice and a country-sized iceberg that is the largest floating object in the world may not take place, the European Space Agency (ESA) suggested.

Polar scientists have been rubbing their hands in expectation of the impending "collision of the century" between the 120-kilometer-long (75-mile) B-15A iceberg and a huge floating glacier, the Drygalski Ice Tongue, that juts into McMurdo Sound.

The meeting between these two behemoths was to have taken place by last Saturday at the latest, according to images taken by the NASA satellites Aqua and Terra.

Collisions on this scale are extraordinarily rare, powerfully affecting the area's wildlife, as well as shoreline topography and sea currents, and it is...