The NASA Earth Observatory recently released images of a newly-created iceberg drifting along the Antarctic Ocean. Scientists are now tracking its movements, as it could affect sea levels in nearby places. 

In November 2013, a large iceberg emerged after a massive chunk separated from the Pine Island Glacier (PIG). The iceberg then drifted to nearby waters and eventually reached the Amundsen Sea. The space agency initially postulated that the iceberg might journey through the Southern Ocean, but worried winter's darkness might snarl efforts to track the ice mass.

The island, named B31, is being monitored by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). Although iceberg calving is normal, experts from NASA expressed their desire to study the matter further as it drifts along the ocean.

"Iceberg calving is a very normal process," a glaciologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Kelly Brunt said in a press release. "However, the detachment rift, or crack, that created this iceberg was well upstream of the 30-year average calving front of Pine Island Glacier (PIG), so this is a region that warrants monitoring."

Researchers have been focusing on PIG in the recent past because of rapid draining and thinning occurring inside the glacier. Scientists hypothesized that these phenomena might contribute to rising sea levels, which affect areas around the world.

The iceberg will also be tracked by the researchers from the University of Sheffield and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). On February 2014, analysts deployed a research ship to make some observations.

"We are doing some research on local ocean currents to try to explain the motion properly. It has been surprising how there have been periods of almost no motion, interspersed with rapid flow," Bigg explained in a press release. "There were a couple of occasions early on when there might have been partial grounding or collisions with the seafloor, as B31 bounced from one side of the bay to the other."