Washington, Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) --

An iceberg bigger than the state of Delaware has broken off an Antarctic ice shelf, the Associated Press reported, citing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The iceberg, named A-38, is 92 miles long and about 30 miles wide, with an area of 2,751 square miles, or about 35 percent more than Delaware's 2,044 square miles.

A-38 is the largest iceberg to break off an ice shelf in the southern hemisphere since 1987, and some scientists believe that icebergs that break off are evidence of global warming, AP said.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- Scientists studying global warming have been able to restart a drilling project off the Antarctic coast early this year after being plagued for two years by bad weather. Solid sea ice more than 6-feet thick will enable a 50-ton drill rig to drill a 2,300-foot hole into the Antarctic seabed at the ice ontinent's Cape Roberts.

``The ice is thicker this year, Antarctica is letting us have another go,'' Peter Barrett, the chief scientist for the project, told The Associated Press today. The six-nation project is drilling the Antarctic coastal seabed to study past climatic changes. Scientists believe the rock cores from 1,500 feet below the sea bed could unlock the history of Antarctica's climate and offer clues to global warming.

They also believe that studying earlier Antarctic warm spells may help them predict what global warming may do to the world's ice and sea levels. ``We would like to get back 65 million years to the end of the Cretaceous period, the end of the age of the dinosaurs,'' Barrett said.

Last year, the team extracted 500 feet of core material from the first hole before a severe storm broke a huge chunk from the ice-sheet and forced them to quickly evacuate the drill rig back to solid ice, 15 miles closer to the shore. A thin ice sheet prevented any drilling in 1996. The drilling project off Cape Roberts is 85 miles northwest of New Zealand's Scott Base and the U.S. McMurdo Station. The $5 million project is a joint venture of the United States, Australia, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and Britain.

Barrett said the team is cementing the casing to the seafloor 560 feet below the ice, ready to start drilling later this week. Last year's hole yielded material going back 22 million years, including 32 different shellfish fossils and 15 previously unknown species of algae. The discovery of the shells indicates the Ross Sea off Antarctica was several degrees warmer some 1.2 to 1.8 million years ago, said Marco Taviani of the Institute of Marine Geology in Bologna, Italy.

Fifty scientists from 28 institutions around the world are analyzing and describing the seabed core as it is recovered by the drilling team. Barrett, professor of geology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand said 50-mph winds at McMurdo had prevented any flights to the ice for nearly a week. Only the drilling and logistics teams have reached the Antarctic so far.

WASHINGTON, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Vessels travelling in the South Atlantic's most popular commercial shipping lanes could be threatened by icebergs breaking away from a major floe the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

``We're not concerned with ships running into the larger berg itself,'' U.S. Navy Lt. Andy Ulak, a spokesman for the National Ice Centre, told Reuters.

``The fear is there will be an erosion of smaller bergs ... ranging in size from VW buses (Volkswagen passenger vans) to small (multistory) buildings floating around out there.''

The larger iceberg, designated by the National Ice Centre in Suitland, Maryland, as B-10A, is part of an even larger piece of ice that broke free of the Thwaites Glacier in 1992.

Currently, B-10A measures 24 miles (38 km) wide by 48 miles (77 km) long, roughly the same dimensions as Rhode Island, the smallest U.S. state.

The B-10A is still about 1,000 miles (1600 km) from the south Atlantic's most popular commercial shipping lanes between South America and Antarctica, and at its current rate of speed it would take about three months to arrive there, Ulak said.

``It's not going to close the beaches in Rio,'' Ulak said. ``But it is time that we are paying attention.''

For the last six months the mountain of ice has been floating northeastward at a rate of about 10 miles (16 km) per day, though during the last week currents have taken the B-10A on a southeastern track.

Ulak said if B-10A continues on a northerly track and begins to melt, captains of cruise ships, scientific vessels and sailboats navigating the region off Antarctica during the south Atlantic summer months must be aware that more icebergs may be in the water.