 British Antarctic Survey is trying to reach a newly revealed ecosystem that had been hidden for 120,000 years below the Larsen C ice shelf 
 
 A team of international scientists is due to set off for the world’s biggest iceberg on Wednesday, fighting huge waves and the encroaching Antarctic winter, in a mission aiming to answer fundamental questions about the impact of climate change in the polar regions. A team of researchers, led by the British Antarctic Survey, is heading to Antarctica this week to investigate a mysterious marine ecosystem that’s been hidden underneath an Antarctic ice shelf for tens of thousands of years. In July last year, part of the Larsen C ice shelf calved away, forming a huge iceberg - A68 - which is four times bigger than London, and revealing life beneath for the first time. They expect to reach the iceberg within a week. “The calving of A-68 provides us with a unique opportunity to study marine life as it responds to a dramatic environmental change," said expedition leader Katrin Linse from the British Antarctic Survey 
 
 They need to get there in a hurry: "It’s important we get there quickly before the undersea environment changes as sunlight enters the water and new species begin to colonize," she said. More: Undersea cruise: Humanity's first visit to the Antarctic seafloor finds it 'carpeted with life' 
 
 David Vaughan, science director of the survey, said “the calving of A-68 offers a new and unprecedented opportunity to establish an interdisciplinary scientific research program in this climate sensitive region. Larsen C is a long way south and there’s lots of sea ice in the area, but this is important science, so we will try our best to get the team where they need to be.” 
 
 
 
 He said climate change had already affected the seas around Antarctica and is warming some coastal waters. Adrian Luckman, professor of glaciology at Swansea University and leader of a project studying the state of the ice shelf, said: “Whilst the Larsen C ice shelf has reduced in area since records began, suggesting that over the long-term the environment of the Antarctic peninsula is becoming less able to support ice shelves, we have no evidence to link this particular calving event to changing conditions.  When A-68, a trillion-ton iceberg the size of Delaware (or ten Madrids or two Luxembourgs, whatever you want to call it), parted ways with the Antarctic Larsen-C ice shelf in the summer of 2017, it was the largest recorded calving in history.
– When an iceberg the size of Delaware separated from the Larsen C ice shelf last July, it uncovered an Antarctic marine habitat that had been hidden from the rest of the world for over 120,000 years, Quartz reports. Now scientists are racing to study the 3,600-square-mile ecosystem before it's forever changed by its sudden exposure to sunlight. "The calving of A-68 provides us with a unique opportunity to study marine life as it responds to a dramatic environmental change," marine biologist Dr. Katrin Linse tells the Guardian. A-68 is the trillion-ton iceberg—the largest in the world—that broke away from the ice shelf last summer. Linse says it's a "very exciting" opportunity for scientists, but they have to hurry because new species will quickly enter the ecosystem now that it has been exposed to sunlight, USA Today reports. British Antarctic Survey scientists led by Linse were scheduled to arrive in Antarctica on Wednesday. Over the next three weeks they'll explore 2,200 square miles of the newly exposed area while observing marine mammals and birds near the surface and taking samples of microbes and other life at the seafloor. It won't be easy. The average temperature in the area is 15 degrees, and it's full of large hunks of sea ice. But David Vaughan, science director at the British Antarctic Survey, says studying the area is important for learning about the potential impacts of climate change on Antarctica. "How fast species can disperse, and how fast ecosystems can colonize new areas, is key to understanding where the Antarctic is likely to be resilient, and where it is vulnerable," he tells the Guardian. (This Antarctic explorer turned back, but his decision came too late.)