Iceberg

An iceberg is a large piece of ice floating in the sea.^[1] It is generally found in cold water near the North or the South Pole. Icebergs are especially common during spring when ice has begun to melt.

An iceberg

An iceberg might look like this.

About 90% of icebergs are below the water line. Icebergs break off from larger structures made of ice like glaciers or ice shelves. They are formed by snowfall in very cold places that it do not melt in the summer. The snow builds up and compacts into ice, which is gradually pulled downhill by gravity and into the sea. The ice then falls off and makes icebergs, which can drift in the sea for years before they have melted completely.

History

The first person to give a correct scientific explanation of this phenomenon was Mikhail Lomonosov, who did so around 1750. He grew up on the shore of the White Sea in the European part of Russia. He studied in Marburg, Germany, and is credited with introducing the word iceberg into Russian.

The density of ice is about 0.92 kg per liter, and that of sea water is about 1.025 kg per liter, which causes 920 parts of the 1025, or about 90 percent, of the iceberg's volume to be below the water line.

Icebergs are very dangerous to ships, and many ships have sunk after crashing into icebergs. The most famous case was RMS Titanic in 1912.

Largest iceberg

D15A is the largest iceberg, as of the third quarter of 2025.^[2]

A23a used to be the largest iceberg.^[3]

Earlier, the largest iceberg that people know about was B-15. It broke off the Antarctic ice sheet in 2000 and was as large as the island of Jamaica (over 10,000 km²). The iceberg soon started to break up into smaller pieces, some of which remained in 2008.

Icebergs have become large because of global warming.

Colors

There is a color of blue called iceberg.