Crandles,
South side:
The compression effort between the Cork and the future Iceberg is decreasing and will soon be null which will lead in any case to the release of the Iceberg on the south side (hypothesis 2).
It could be that the southern edge of the iceberg will crumble beforehand (hypothesis 3): if this becomes more difficult as the pressure decreases, it must be taken into account that it must not be in good condition.
The Cork itself should not break (I thus retain less probable hypothesis 4).
The widening of R2 is upstream of the Cork-Iceberg junction and for me it does not change the terms of the problem (so I do not retain hypothesis 1)
I would like to add two other hypotheses for completeness:
Crumbling of the eastern edge of the future Iceberg SWT-SIS which is one of the points of support of the Cork. This side took a big knock during the compression by the plug with the formation of many fractures parallel to the compression stress. Now the compression tends to decrease, but also to change direction, which, taking into account the existing fractures, could lead to its crumbling: to be taken into account (hypothesis 6).
The iceberg is now weakened and could break north of the point of contact with the cork (hypothesis 7).
North side:
For the moment is more solid, but once it's yielded to the south it shouldn't last long (a month?). Hypothesis 5 for me is therefore not an alternative to the other hypotheses, but complements them.
But while waiting for the north side the iceberg could start to crumble (hypothesis8).
Open questions:
* North side: how will the breakage occur: will we keep the side of the shelf attached to the pinning point or will we lose a piece of it, which would move the pinning point back?
* Once the Pinning Point is detached from the future Iceberg, will it stay in place at least temporarily or will it also calve immediately allowing the dense ice mixture upstream to calve quickly?
* Will R3 continue to widen and expand creating the conditions for further calving or, once the south side of the Iceberg is free, will it temporarily stabilize?
Conclusions : we don't have many positive elements ...
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