The Slow Down: The Seven-Minute Sound of Something Enormous Coming to Rest

A vast flat-topped tabular iceberg in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, its sheer blue-white cliff face rising above the glittering sea

About 6 min readOn 19 May 1997, underwater microphones in the equatorial Pacific picked up a sound that fell steadily in pitch for seven minutes — as if something enormous were slowing down and coming to rest on the seafloor, thousands of kilometres away. NOAA’s best explanation is an iceberg grinding to a halt off Antarctica.