West Ice Shelf
Coordinates: 66 ° 40 ′ S , 85 ° 0 ′ E
The West Ice Shelf (formerly West Ice and West Barrier ) is a striking 16,370 km² ice shelf that is located over a distance of around 280 kilometers between the Barrierevika and the Posadowskybai on the coast of the East Antarctic Princess Elisabeth Land .
It was discovered and named by the German polar explorer Erich von Drygalski during the Gauss expedition (1901–1903). The toponym resulted from the geographical position in which Drygalski sighted the ice shelf and where the expedition ship Gauß was finally enclosed by the pack ice between February 22, 1902 and February 8, 1903 .
Web links
- West Ice Shelf in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey
- West Ice Shelf on geographic.org