Landsat 8 image from February 28, 2019.
The Drygalski Ice Tongue is a ~4000 year old floating extension of the David Glacier near McMurdo Station in the Antarctic Ross Sea. Early 20th Century explorers mapped the tongue to an extent of around 65km, while the feature reached 110km in the 1950s before calving nearly 40km in 1956/57. Ever since, it’s been growing, reaching 80km (50mi) today. Given its size, it’s easy to imagine how this feature influences its local region, severing as an obstacle to massive icebergs such as C-16, which collide in a powerful yet slow-motion events that could only occur with the largest ice tongue in the world.
Comparison in size of the Drygalski Ice Tongue and Delaware. Made with thetruesize.com.
Satellite data modified from NASA/USGS’s Landsat 8. CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.