When icebergs attack!
mongabay.com
November 19, 2006
An iceberg was spotted from the New Zealand shore for the first time in 75 years.
The iceberg, one of more than 100 drifting off the southern coast of New Zealand's South Island, was briefly visible late last week from the town of Dunedin. It is the first time that icebergs have been seen from the shore since 1931 according to Mike Williams, an oceanographer at the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research.
The Associated Press reports that the icebergs have become a tourist attractive, with ice people paying hundreds of dollars for flyovers offering a closer look.
Photo courtesy of the New Zealand Defense Department
Scientists say there is no evidence that the icebergs are the result of global warming and that passing icebergs are not uncommon in the seas off the coast of New Zealand.
"It's a fairly frequent occurrence; it's just unusual for such large bergs to get so far north," Paul Augustinus, a glacial geomorphology professor at Auckland University, told the Associated Press.
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