ST. PETERSBURG, August 13. /TASS/. The world's biggest iceberg A23a, which is three times the size of St. Petersburg, stopped again after a year-long drift, press service of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI, St. Petersburg) said.

"The biggest iceberg on the planet - A23a, which broke off from the Antarctic glacier 38 years ago, got into an ocean vortex in the Skosha Sea and stopped again. Having broken off in 1986, the ice giant, three times the size of St. Petersburg, was stranded in the Weddell Sea for 30 years. In the spring of last year, it suddenly began drifting along the Antarctic Peninsula shores towards the Skosha Sea," the release reads.

The iceberg's area is 4,366 square kilometers, the press service continued. At the moment, the iceberg is rotating slowly, and the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is having a significant impact on it, and eventually it will destroy the iceberg.

"The current's warm waters continue to affect actively the iceberg's underwater part, therefore, highly probably, A23a will eventually collapse, and then its parts will continue moving into the Skosha Sea. However, due to the iceberg's size, it may take quite a time," the press service quoted Sergey Kashin, a researcher at the institute's Department of Oceanology, as saying.