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A mass of ice the size of Luxembourg (2,500 square kilometers) has broken away from the language of the Mertz Glacier in East Antarctica when it hit the tongue a giant iceberg adrift known as B-9B, as revealed by images taken by satellites. The collision occurred three weeks ago and now the two icebergs, which together weigh 700 million tons, floating aimlessly.

Scientists fear that this phenomenon affects the ocean circulation around the world and the marine life in the region.

The concern is that this ice-mass displacement of the iceberg the size of Luxembourg could supply water to one third of the world population during a year, alter the composition of seawater in the area and the normal flow of salt water dense and cold that carries oxygen to the deep ocean currents.

“The end of the ice tongue could reduce the level of salinity in the ocean and affect the life cycle of the sea,” said Rob Massoma, one of the scientists responsible for the Australian Antarctic Division, told Reuters . According to Mario Hoppema, an oceanographer at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, “as a result of this phenomenon may have lost oxygen ocean areas and, consequently, marine life die in there.”

Massoma has stressed that the release of ice Mertz is not related to climate change, but has to do with the natural movements of the ice sheets.

The iceberg B-9B is what remains of a larger, 5,000 square kilometers, which broke off in 1987, becoming one of the largest ice mass in Antarctica. This gigantic iceberg was drifting westward before running aground in 1992. Recently, he released her, being next to the Mertz.