Iceberg Fact File

An Iceberg (below) is a large piece of ice that has broken away from a glacier or ice shell. Icebergs in the North Atlantic mostly come from glaciers on Greenland, and those in the South Atlantic from the Antarctic.

1. The word iceberg probably comes from the Dutch ijisberg, or ice hill.
2. Icebergs float because they are made of fresh water which is less dense than sea water.
3. Seven-eighths of an iceberg is below the surface of the sea, hence the expression “the tip of the iceberg”, which means that more is concealed than can be seen.
4. The tallest iceberg ever measured was 168m high. It was seen in 1958 off Greenland and was as tall as a 50-storey skyscraper.
5. Small icebergs those less than 1m high and 5m wide are known as growlers, because of the noise they make.
6. Iceberg larger than growlers is called berg bits; then they are graded small, medium, large or very large. Very large icebergs are those measuring more than 35m high and 213m wide.
7. One of the biggest icebergs of recent times, known as 8-15, broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, in March 2000. It had an average length of 29.5km and width of 37km, giving it a total area about the size of Jamaica!.
8. The air trapped in iceberg ice – which is “harvested” and sold for use in drinks – may be as much as 3000 years old.
9. At least 500 incidents have been recorded of ships striking icebergs. In 1875, the 82 crew members of the schooner Caledonia were rescued after their ship sank ad they spent a night sitting on an iceberg. The worst – ever disaster involving an iceberg happened when the Titanic struck an iceberg on 14 April 1912 and 1,503 lives were lost.
10. During World War II, Lord Mountbatten led a program devised by British inventor Geoffrey Pyke to build artificial iceberg to use as aircraft carriers, but the projects, codenamed Habbakuk, was abandoned.
11. About 10,000 to 15,000 new icebergs are formed every year. The process is called “calving”