"The birth of a new iceberg" in amazing photos!

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New images show the "birth of a huge iceberg", called A83, which broke off from the Brunt Shelf in Antarctica and occupies an area of ​​380 square kilometers and is approximately 150 meters thick.

Experts say that the separation occurred last Monday, just weeks after a new crack was discovered in satellite images.

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) revealed that the movement of iceberg A83 is controlled by ocean currents.

The Brunt Ice Shelf has seen a number of icebergs break off from it over the past few years.

A83 separated after a vertical crack connected with a previously existing horizontal crack.

The horizontal crack, called the Halloween Crack, was discovered on October 31, 2016. But the shorter vertical crack, 14 km long, was only spotted on April 26 of this year.

Dr Oliver Marsh, a glaciologist at BAS, told MailOnline: "This calving has been expected since the Halloween Crack appeared 8 years ago. It reduces the total area of ​​the ice shelf to its smallest extent since monitoring began."

Ice shelves are large floating platforms of ice attached to a land mass, such as Antarctica, although they are also found in other polar locations such as Greenland. It acts as a protective buffer zone for the mainland ice, preventing the entire Antarctic ice sheet from flowing into the ocean, which would dramatically raise global sea levels.

The melting of the ice shelves has been linked to global warming, but according to BAS, the crack that led to the separation of A83 arose by a natural process.

Marsh said the mountain broke off due to the flow of the Brunt Ice Shelf toward a fixed point on the sea floor (known as the MacDonald Ice Ripples).

"Over time, this created pressure in the ice north of the Halloween Crack, which increased until it exceeded a critical value. This type of separation is just one of the mechanisms by which the ice sheet loses mass, remaining balanced with snowfall throughout the year," he added.