Icebergs heading toward NZ 

Source: ONE NewsA massive iceberg is drifting off Macquarie Island, half way between New Zealand and Antarctica

Australian scientists say a large mass of 20 icebergs is heading towards New Zealand.

The Australian Antarctic Division says the mass is drifting north from Antarctica, past the sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island about 1500km southeast of Tasmania.

In the past day or so at least four icebergs have been spotted off the east and west coasts of the island, ranging in size from 50 metres up to an estimated 2km in length.

It follows the recent sighting of a 500m long iceberg .

Glaciologist Neal Young says it looks like there are at least 20 icebergs around the island.

"From satellite images we can see there is a whole group of icebergs, roughly spread over an area of 1000 kilometres by 700 kilometres, moving with the ocean current away from Antarctica," Young says.

"The larger icebergs seen from Macquarie Island are tabular in shape, which indicates they have calved relatively recently, probably from one of the massive icebergs which originally calved from the Ross Ice Shelf nearly nine years ago."

In 2000, several massive icebergs broke off from Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf and the Ronne Ice Shelf.

The first iceberg was about 300km long and 37km wide.

Those icebergs are now drifting away from Antarctica.

"Everyone on station has their eyes glued to the horizon trying to spot new icebergs," says the acting station leader on Macquarie Island, Cyril Munro.

"The scientists working on the southern tip of the island were astounded to see an iceberg of about 2km in length."

He says the icebergs are likely to continue heading to the north and east in the general direction of New Zealand.

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research scientist Mike Williams says several icebergs have been drifting slowly northward with the ocean current toward the South Island over the past year, but it is uncommon for them to move so far into warmer northern waters.