A 40 Million Ton Iceberg Dumped In Lake by NZ Earthquake

The 6.3 magnitude  earthquake in  New Zealand's South Island on Tuesday apparently caused a massive iceberg , estimated at 30 -- 40 tons , to shear off from Tasman Glacier Terminal Lake , as Aoraki Mount Cook National Park .

In what must have been a truly spectacular glacier calving  , the gigantic iceberg ripped off from the glacier within minutes of the earthquake  that rocked the  South Island , and crashed into the lake . Some chunks are now towering up to 50 meters -- or 164 feet -- above the lake .

"Within about a minute of that happening  , the staff at the lake heard from five kilometers away (from the glacier) a second sound that sounded like a rifle shot and then over the next two minutes  all the events started to unfold.

When it collapsed  , it created waves up to three meters high  (almost ten feet) in the lake for 30 minutes , rocking two sightseeing boats  that were on the lake at the time .

Richard McNanara from the Department of Conservation did not witness it himself , but said if "it carved in one big lot  ; a face about  a kilometer long carving is a spectacular sight ." The iceberg , he said , would then have popped up to water like a porpoise  before starting to break into smaller pieces.

The glacier was already at the tipping point , according to locals  who had been expecting a major iceberg  to drop from the glacier for the  past month.

McNamara also believed that the timing may have been coincidental . "You could argue thether the earthquake precipitated it or not  -- the fact is that the terminal face was about due to carve anyway.