Iceberg

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iceberg

A large mass of floating or stranded ice that has broken away from a glacier; usually more than 5 m above sea level.

The unmodified term "iceberg" usually refers to the irregular masses of ice formed by the calving of glaciers along an orographically rough coast, whereas tabular icebergs and ice islands are calved from an ice shelf, and floebergs are formed from sea ice. In decreasing size, they are classified as: ice island (few thousand square meters to 500 km2 in area); tabular iceberg; iceberg; bergy bit (less than 5 m above sea level, between 1 and 200 m2 in area); and growler (less than 1 m above sea level, about 20 m2 in area).


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