An iceberg that broke off Antarctica in January took with it a shipping container full of diesel, now wreaking havoc under the sea. German officials have confirmed that seven shipping containers—including one holding 9,500 liters of Arctic diesel—were carried out to sea when the iceberg calved off the ice shelf near Germany's Neumayer Station III during a storm. The containers had been staged a few hundred meters from the coast for pickup by ship when a blizzard with winds up to 80mph fractured the ice, sending a massive slab adrift into the Weddell Sea, reports ABC Australia.
The iceberg, with all seven containers still perched on it, was spotted Jan. 22 by the crew on the German icebreaker RV Polarstern, which abandoned its research work and diverted to the scene. After glaciologists deemed some parts of the berg stable enough to land on, helicopter crews managed to recover nearly a ton of equipment, including three fuel drums, gas cylinders, and batteries. But as the risk of the iceberg breaking up increased, the salvage operation was halted on Jan. 25, leaving the shipping containers behind. Four held non-toxic household waste and a fifth served as a shelter, ABC reports.
Satellite tracking suggests the iceberg broke apart around late February, with the containers likely sinking to the seafloor. The report says household waste will have "little direct impact" on the environment, but the diesel container had probably ruptured, meaning its contents escaped. Arctic diesel is lighter and more volatile than heavy fuel oil, so some may evaporate, but frigid Antarctic waters will slow natural breakdown, and officials say the fuel could linger in the ecosystem for an extended period. The German government says it deeply regrets the incident and that containers will be stored several miles from the ice edge in future.
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