For each detonation, a team boarded the 

 iceberg from a rubber raft, drilled holes in the 

 iceberg with a power auger, and planted the 

 charges. Drilling each hole took about 45 

 minutes, during which time loud cracking noises 

 could be heard from within the ice. After 

 planting the charges, the party ran a detonation 

 cable to USCGC Evergreen, which ignited the 

 thermite. The first detonation, consisting of 196 

 pounds of thermite, scattered a shower of molten 

 iron over a radius of 100 yards but, other than 

 producing a few growlers, had no significant 

 impact on the size of the iceberg. The second 

 detonation, on a different iceberg, used 364 

 pounds of thennite with the same results as the 

 first. A third detonation, a 560-pound thermite 

 charge planted near the base of the iceberg's pinnacle, had the following result: 



[A] magnificent display took place as smoke and molten iron was hurled hundreds of feet into the 



12 

 air, but the berg remained virtually unchanged. This concluded the thermite tests" 



Figure 4. Shortly after the detonation of 560 lbs of 

 thermite a large plume of smoke and steam rose 



These tests showed that thermite detonations would not necessarily cause the disintegration seen 

 by Prof. Barnes's experiments in 1926. 



The intent of the final phase of the 1 960 tests was to cover an iceberg with carbon black 

 and other dark substances to speed its solar-induced deterioration. Ice Patrol first tried to drop the 

 material on the iceberg from an airplane (USCG's R5D, which is a military version of the 

 Douglas DC-4). Regardless of the material used, it was not possible to achieve adequate coverage 



of the iceberg using the aircraft delivery 

 method. Again, Ice Patrol resorted to 

 boarding the iceberg, in fact the same 

 Bonavista Bay iceberg that was the subject 

 of the first thermite detonation. Three 

 persons with fiber brooms spread 25 pounds 

 of carbon black in 30 minutes. They 

 covered 6,500 square feet, approximately 

 half the iceberg's surface. Five hours after 

 the carbon black was placed on the iceberg, 

 it broke apart, and by the next day it was 

 reduced to less than a third of its pervious 

 size. As with the bombing and wrecking 

 mine tests, it is not possible to say how 

 much of the observed breakup was due to 

 natural causes and how much to Ice Patrol's 

 intervention. 



The tests in 1959 and 1960 can be 

 best be summarized as follows: 



Figure 3. It took three men using fiber brooms about 

 30 minutes to cover half the iceberg's surface with 

 carbon black. 



48 



