When icebergs collide, they create seismic tremors that are detectable thousands of kilometres away and might one day be used to track the disintegration of ice shelves.
Douglas MacAyeal of the University of Chicago in Illinois and his colleagues placed four seismometers on a 50-kilometre-long iceberg (marked with an asterisk) that sits aground in the Ross Sea, off Antarctica. Over several weeks, they recorded many series of tremors, which they attribute to an adrift neighbouring iceberg (pictured centre) grating against the stationary one. Each series contained thousands of ice-quakes per hour.
The tremors share some similarities — but are distinct enough not to be confused — with recently discovered tremors that emanate from subduction zones and from the San Andreas fault.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Geophysics: Iceberg smash-up. Nature 454, 806 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/454806a
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/454806a
