Football field wide crack lengthens on Antarctic ice shelf

A 112km-long crack that is as wide as a football field has been captured by NASA on an Antarctic ice shelf which is threatening to unleash a mammoth iceberg of staggering proportions.

The Larsen C is the fourth-largest Antarctic ice shelf and the most-northern major shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula.

The shelf is "slightly smaller than Scotland" and covered in a 350m-thick layer of ice, according to the British Antarctic survey.

Between 2011 and 2015 the crack grew 30km in length and 200m wide.

But the new picture captured by scientists during NASA's IceBridge mission paints an alarming picture of the likely soon-to-be breaking up of the Larsen C shelf.

Scientists observed the crack is now 112km long, and plunges down to a depth of about 500m through the ice into the ocean beneath, according to Live Science.

Once the crack eventually spreads it will create an iceberg that is approximately 6,451 square kilometres - roughly three times the size of the Australian Capital Territory.

This would remove between nine percent and 12 percent of Larsen C's surface and potentially lead to the crumbling of the entire ice shelf.

Larsen A and B shelves have already broken up, with the first disintegrating in January 1995 and the second beginning the process of collapsing in early 2002.