An iceberg that has been stuck for several months in the shallow waters off the island of South Georgia is losing its edge.
An iceberg that has been stuck for several months in the shallow waters off the island of South Georgia is losing its edge. Though it is still the largest iceberg currently at sea, waves and other seasonal weather effects are chipping away at its sides and shrinking its visible surface area.
The MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of the berg, named A-23A, on May 3, 2025. The huge berg was parked less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) off South Georgia, which is part of a remote island group in the South Atlantic Ocean located northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula and well east of the tip of South America.
The berg’s underside is most likely lodged on a shallow underwater shelf around South Georgia, known in the past to have snagged several Antarctic icebergs on their northward drift into warmer South Atlantic waters. Satellite images show that the iceberg has remained at a standstill since at least early March 2025.
Though its position remained largely unchanged, the berg’s surface area has declined considerably in just two months. According to iceberg data from the U.S. National Ice Center (USNIC), A-23A lost more than 360 square kilometers (140 square miles) between March 6 and May 3—an area roughly twice the size of Washington, D.C.
Read more at NASA Earth Observatory
Image: NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview.
