The largest ice shelf on the Antarctic Penninsula is disintegrating further by calving a huge iceburg. The dimensions of the iceburg are about 25 mi. by 1.5 mi. (41 kilometers by 2.5 kilometers).

Source

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A thin strip of ice, just 6 kilometres wide, is all that is holding back the collapse of a huge ice shelf in Antarctica, according to glaciologists.

The Wilkins ice shelf – previously some 16,000 square kilometres in area – has been disintegrating fast. On 28 February, an iceberg 41 km long and 2.5 km wide broke off the ice shelf. This triggered the runaway disintegration of a further 570 square kilometres of ice.

"I would be very surprised if it survives more than a couple more melt seasons," says Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado, US.

Other researchers, including David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey, believe it could be gone within weeks. "The ice shelf is hanging by a thread – we'll know in the next few days or weeks what its fate will be," he says.

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You can read more about it here.

Video of the ice shelf.

EDIT: I have replaced my original overlay with a series of four overlays provided by NASA Earth Observatory. The series shows how dramatic the breakup has been. Thanks for the link blt and for the suggestion mspelto

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