Pine Island Glacier ice shelf rift by NASA ICE

This close-up of the rift opening up across the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf was captured by the nadir-looking Digital Mapping System (DMS) on NASA’s DC-8, which flew over the rift on Oct. 26, 2011 as part of NASA’s Operation IceBridge. The DMS snaps a high-resolution image every few seconds to gather more information about the topography of ice sheets, ice shelves, sea ice and glaciers. The rift measured about 820 feet across at its widest and about 200 feet at its deepest. The ice shelf hasn’t calved a major iceberg since 2001, and IceBridge took advantage of the opportunity afforded by spotting the crack to fly over and make detailed measurements. Credit: NASA/DMS

(via scipsy)