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WEEKLY NEWS 1: Loose Tooth Ice Shelf

What types of things do you think are born in the winter wonderland of the South Pole? You'd probably guess things like penguins and seals. But icebergs are also born there! U.S. scientists are the first to study the “Loose Tooth” in Antarctica to determine how icebergs are born.

The “Loose Tooth” is part of an ice shelf on the eastern coast of Antarctica. An ice shelf is a permanent piece of floating ice attached to land. It only snows one to three inches a year in Antarctica, but the snow never melts. Over the centuries, yearly snowfalls have frozen together and built up the ice shelves. Antarctica does have land mass, but much of its shape is determined by the ice shelves that surround the continent.

The largest ice shelf on the western coast is about the size of France, but the “Loose Tooth” on the east coast is closer to separation. When part of an ice shelf begins to separate, the process is called calving. An iceberg is a piece of an ice shelf that separated and now floats free.

Scientists wanted to know why calving occurs, so they placed sensitive instruments in and around the “Loose Tooth.” They found that the cracks in the ice shelf form at intervals with quiet periods between progressive separations. Even though ice shelves float on and are made of water, the data shows that iceberg formation does not seem to be related to wind, currents, or tides. Researchers now believe that gravity may be the cause of iceberg formation.

Scientists only have a short time to study this interesting phenomenon because the “Loose Tooth” may calve in five years.

--Written by Katheryn Troyer

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