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An iceberg is a piece of
An iceberg is a piece of freshwater
Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...
ice more than 15 m long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially-derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". The sinking of the ''Titanic'' in 1912 led to the formation of the International Ice Patrol
The International Ice Patrol is an organization with the purpose of monitoring the presence of icebergs in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans and reporting their movements for safety purposes. It is operated by United States Coast Guard but is fund ...
in 1914. Much of an iceberg is below the surface, which led to the expression " tip of the iceberg" to illustrate a small part of a larger unseen issue. Icebergs are considered a serious maritime hazard.
Icebergs vary considerably in size and shape. Icebergs that calve from glaciers in Greenland are often irregularly shaped while Antarctic
The Antarctic ( or , American English also or ; commonly ) is a polar region around Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica, the Kerguelen Plateau and other ...
ice shelves often produce large tabular (table top) icebergs. The largest iceberg in recent history (2000), named B-15, measured nearly 300 km × 40 km. The largest iceberg on record was an Antarctic tabular iceberg of over [] sighted west of Scott Island, in the South Pacific Ocean, by the USS Glacier (AGB-4), USS ''Glacier'' on November 12, 1956. This iceberg was larger than Belgium. Big icebergs are also often compared in size to the area of Manhattan.
Etymology
The word ''iceberg'' is a partialloan translation
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...
from the Dutch word ''ijsberg'', literally meaning '' ice mountain'', cognate to Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...
''isbjerg'', German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
''Eisberg'', Low Saxon
Low Saxon, also known as West Low German ( nds, Nedersassisch, Nedersaksies; nl, Nedersaksisch) are a group of Low German dialects spoken in parts of the Netherlands, northwestern Germany and southern Denmark (in North Schleswig by parts of th ...
''Iesbarg'' and Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
'' isberg''.
Overview
Typically about one-tenth of the volume of an iceberg is above water, which follows from Archimedes's Principle of buoyancy; the density of pure ice is about 920 kg/m3 (57 lb/cu ft), and that of seawater about . The contour of the underwater portion can be difficult to judge by looking at the portion above the surface. The largest icebergs recorded have beencalved
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