Ross Ice Shelf

The Ross Ice Shelf is a vast floating extension of the Antarctic ice sheet into the Ross Sea. It is one of Earth’s largest ice shelves and borders the southern Ross Sea.

Ice shelf: A floating platform of ice formed where a glacier or ice sheet flows from land onto the ocean. The Ross Ice Shelf is a defining example of this broader kind of floating ice.
Ross Sea: A deep Antarctic embayment between Victoria Land and Marie Byrd Land. The ice shelf projects into and borders this sea.
Roosevelt Island: An ice-covered island embedded in the Ross Ice Shelf, rising above the surrounding ice. Its buried and exposed structure provides a record of shelf and ice-sheet history.
Filchner–Ronne Ice Shelf: A large Antarctic ice shelf in the Weddell Sea, east of the Antarctic Peninsula. It is the other immense Antarctic shelf commonly compared with the Ross Ice Shelf.
Antarctic Ice Sheet: The vast mass of grounded ice covering most of Antarctica. Ice flowing from the continent feeds the Ross Ice Shelf.
Ross Ice Shelf Project: A United States scientific program that conducted geophysical research on the Ross Ice Shelf in the 1970s. Its field measurements helped establish the shelf’s thickness and structure.
Ross Island: A volcanic island in the Ross Sea, home to Mount Erebus and major Antarctic research stations. It lies beside the shelf’s western margin and anchors key research sites.
Larsen Ice Shelf: A group of ice shelves along the eastern Antarctic Peninsula, several of which have substantially retreated or collapsed. Its rapid changes contrast with the Ross Ice Shelf’s much greater persistence.
Grounding line: The boundary where grounded glacier ice becomes floating ice. Its position marks where the shelf separates from the Antarctic bedrock.
Ice-shelf cavity: The ocean-filled space beneath a floating ice shelf. Water circulation in the cavity controls heat exchange beneath the shelf.

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