It's been a long and unusual journey for the world's largest iceberg¹, known as A23a, but it's ending in a relatively² usual way: breaking apart and melting in the warmer waters of the South Atlantic Ocean, just like icebergs³ have done for millions of years before.

The iceberg — which at one time was around the same size as the Hawaiian island of Oahu — is "rapidly breaking up" into several "very large chunks," according to scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), which has been tracking its movements.

A23a has been closely tracked by scientists ever since it broke off, or calved, from the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf in Antarctica in 1986. It's had the title of "largest iceberg" several times since then — sometimes overtaken by larger but shorter-lived icebergs, but regaining⁴ it when those broke apart.