Iceberg A-81 approaches South Georgia after leaving Brunt Ice Shelf

NASA said in its announcement published Tuesday 27 October 2026 that Iceberg A-81 had approached South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean by late October 2026. The berg was 2,300 kilometers (1,400 miles) north-northwest of the Brunt Ice Shelf.

The roughly 1,550-square-kilometer (600-square-mile) iceberg broke from Brunt in January 2023. It spent more than three years in the Weddell Sea, carried along the coast by the clockwise-flowing Weddell Gyre. By May 2026, it reached the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. It then moved north into the Scotia Sea.

A MODIS image from NASA's Terra satellite showed the berg on October 20. In the days before, its progress slowed, and it appeared to be moving along the edge of South Georgia's underwater shelf, according to Jan Lieser of Australia's Bureau of Meteorology and Christopher Shuman of the University of Maryland. South Georgia had slowed and stopped icebergs before. Iceberg A-23A ran aground on the shelf in 2025 and later broke apart.

Chasm 1, one of the rifts in the Brunt Ice Shelf, had been relatively stable for about 35 years. It began growing again around 2012 and was advancing quickly enough by 2019 that a break seemed imminent. The floating glacial ice remained attached for several more years before the berg separated in January 2023.

Calving is a normal part of the life cycle of ice shelves, NASA said. Scientists monitor Brunt because it has recently shed several large icebergs in quick succession. The ice shelf is also home to the British Antarctic Survey's Halley Research Station, a major base for Earth, atmospheric, and space science research since the 1950s.

Besides A-81, Brunt calved Iceberg A-74 from the North Rift in 2021 and Iceberg A-83 from the Halloween Crack in 2024. A-74 has broken up. A-83 remains intact and is trailing A-81 northward with other icebergs that appear to be clearing out of the Weddell Sea. The announcement included a NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison using MODIS data.