Massive Iceberg Breaks Off Antarctica, Revealing Wonders Below

In January, an iceberg the size of Chicago splintered off from the Antarctic Peninsula and drifted away in the Bellingshausen Sea.As luck would have it, a team of scientists was nearby on a research vessel, and they seized the chance to see what was lurking on the seafloor beneath that iceberg—a place that had long been covered, and nearly impossible to get to.They found a stunning array of life, like octopuses, sea spiders, and crustaceans, as well as possible clues to the dynamics of ice sheets.Host Ira Flatow talks with the expedition’s two chief scientists: Dr. Patricia Esquete, marine biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, and Dr. Sasha Montelli, glaciologist and geophysicist at University College London.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.  Subscribe to this podcast. Follow our show on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Bluesky @scifri and sign up for our newsletters. Got a science question that’s keeping you up at night? Call us: 877-472-4374 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.