Milne Ice Shelf: Satellites capture Arctic ice split

The Plan­et Earth-obser­va­tion com­pa­ny has just released new imagery of the bro­ken Milne Ice Shelf in the Arctic.

Locat­ed on the north­ern mar­gin of Canada’s Ellesmere Island, the ice plat­form split on 30/​31 July to form a free-float­ing bloc some 80 sq km (30 sq miles) in area.

By 3 August, this berg, or “ice island”, had itself rup­tured in two, with both seg­ments then seen to drift out into the Arc­tic Ocean.

Ice shelves are the float­ing fronts of glac­i­ers that have flowed off the land into the sea.

Ellesmere Island was once bound­ed by exten­sive shelves that had meld­ed into a sin­gle structure.

To read more please vis­it BBC.