By Sid Perkins
From San Francisco, at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2005/01/4728.jpg?resize=144%2C220&ssl=1)
Sensors installed on an immense iceberg stuck in shallow water off Antarctica have relayed data suggesting that the ground motions spawned by large, distant earthquakes can set such grounded icebergs afloat again.
In mid-March 2000, an iceberg nearly the size of Connecticut broke away from Antarctica’s Ross ice shelf (SN: 4/1/00, p. 215: Available to subscribers at Titanic iceberg sets sail from Antarctica). After this 300-meter-thick behemoth—dubbed B15 by scientists—broke in two, winds and ocean currents drove the larger fragment, B15A, aground about 300 kilometers to the west of its birthplace (SN: 5/12/01, p. 298: Big Bergs Ahoy!).