| Abstract | Ice in the North Atlantic has been a known hazard to navigation for as long as we have written records. What could be the earliest description of an iceberg comes from the account of St. Brendan?s voyage from Ireland to North America in about 570 A.D, in which there is a description of a column of pure crystal. Over the following centuries ice must have been a threat to the Norse settlers and the Basque whalers and fishers who persistently expanded their frontiers into cold regions. Casualties must have been common but it is not until 1619 that we have note of perhaps the first recorded incident when an iceberg in the making fell from an ice cliff in Spitzbergen onto a whaling vessel from which it was moored breaking masts and killing three people. |
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