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The day in numbers: 1.8 kilometers

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(CNN) -- About 100 icebergs from Antarctica are floating towards New Zealand. The naturally occurring -- but rare -- phenomena pose a major threat to international shipping.

1.8 km: The length of the largest iceberg in the group. The icy armada has been pushed north after circulating on ocean currents and a series of southern storms.

167 km: The size of the original superberg, A-43, that the flotilla of icebergs are believed to have come from. A-43 broke off the Ronne Ice Shelf near the Falkland Islands around six years ago and started splitting apart as it drifted into the southern Atlantic. By January 2005 it had shrunk to 51 km by 21 km and was renamed A-43A.

11:40 pm: The time at which Frederick Fleet, a lookout on the Titanic, saw an iceberg and struck a warning bell three times. He went to the telephone and called Sixth Officer James Moody and said: "Iceberg right ahead." Within two hours, 1, 517 passengers and crew had drowned.

40,000: The number of medium to larger sized icebergs that "calve" annually in Greenland.

3: The number of polar icebreakers the U.S. Coast Guard deploys each year to the Arctic and Antarctic to maintain navigation channels and support scientific missions. During peacetime, icebergs are considered the most dangerous maritime threat.

1960: The year in which the U.S. Ice Patrol conducted a number of experiments in iceberg demolition. Experiments included dropping bombs, planting bombs inside an iceberg and using brooms to coating icebergs with carbon black to accelerate solar melting. It was concluded that monitoring and warning mariners of the location of an iceberg was a better option.


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The largest iceberg is 1.8 km in length.

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