Larsen Ice Shelf Collapse (WMS)

  • Released Friday, March 4, 2005

The Larsen ice shelf at the northern end of the Antarctic Peninsula experienced a dramatic collapse between January 31 and March 7, 2002. First, melt ponds appeared on the ice shelf during these summer months (seen in blue on the shelf), then a minor collapse of about 800 square kilometers occurred. Finally, a 2600 square kilometer collapse took place, leaving thousands of sliver icebergs and berg fragments where the shelf formerly lay. Brownish streaks within the floating chunks mark areas where rocks and morainal debris are exposed from the former underside and interior of the shelf. These images were acquired by the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite.



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Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Scientific Visualization Studio

Release date

This page was originally published on Friday, March 4, 2005.
This page was last updated on Monday, June 24, 2024 at 3:37 PM EDT.


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