X-Nico

11 unusual facts about Ross Ice Shelf


109th Airlift Wing

With the assumption of the support mission from the Navy, the 109th established an operating location at Christchurch and a forward location at Williams Field, on the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica.

ARIANNA Experiment

ARIANNA will be built on the Ross Ice Shelf just off the coast of Antarctica, where it will eventually cover about 900 km^2 in surface area.

Atlantis Found

The plan that ultimately comes to light: the villains intend to use nanotechnology to separate the Ross Ice Shelf from the Antarctic mainland in order to unbalance the planet and create a catastrophe that they can ride out in their superships.

Byrd Polar Research Center

Ice sheet flow into the ocean is increasing and in western Antarctica, the ice stream is draining into the Ross Ice Shelf with marked acceleration.

Iceberg

Though usually confined by winds and currents to move close to the coast, the largest icebergs recorded have been calved, or broken off, from the Ross Ice Shelf of Antarctica.

Infragravity wave

Infragravity waves generated along the Pacific coast of North America have been observed to propagate transoceanically to Antarctica and there to impinge on the Ross Ice Shelf.

North-west White Island Antarctic Specially Protected Area

The site has been designated an Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA 137) because it supports an unusual small breeding population of Weddell Seals, which is not only the most southerly known, but which has also been physically isolated from other populations by the advance of the McMurdo and Ross ice shelves.

Sewart Air Force Base

The 114 pilots and support crew were quartered ten miles (16 km) from the Ross Ice Shelf in order to be close to flight operations.

Synechococcus

Synechococcus has been observed to occur at concentrations ranging between a few cells per ml to 106 cells per ml in virtually all regions of the oceanic euphotic zone except in samples from the McMurdo Sound and Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

Willis Resilience Expedition

Once the scientific survey is complete, the Willis Resilience Expedition will set off on December 3, 2013 from the Ross Ice Shelf where Liautaud and Stoup will ski 640 km to the South Pole, crossing the Transantarctic Mountains, which ascend to 4,500 meters at the summit.

Winston Wong

The Expedition will travel 3,600 miles across Antarctica, from Patriot Hills on the west coast to the South Pole, heading north from there through the Trans-Antarctic Mountain Range, down the Leverett Glacier and across the Ross Ice Shelf to the coast at McMurdo.


Framheim

Framheim was the name of explorer Roald Amundsen's base at the Bay of Whales on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica during his quest for the South Pole.

Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition

A supporting group, the Ross Sea party, would meanwhile travel to the opposite side of the continent, establish camp in McMurdo Sound, and from there lay a series of supply depots across the Ross Ice Shelf to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier.

Paradise Ridge

Paradise Ridge is a low ridge that parallels the coast at the head of Ross Ice Shelf, located east of Amundsen Glacier and midway between MacDonald Nunataks and O'Brien Peak.

Queen Maud Mountains

The Queen Maud Mountains are a major group of mountains, ranges and subordinate features of the Transantarctic Mountains, lying between the Beardmore and Reedy Glaciers and including the area from the head of the Ross Ice Shelf to the polar plateau in Antarctica.

Robertson Ridge

It was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) for James D. Robertson, United States Antarctic Research Program (USARP) geophysicist at Byrd Station, 1970-71 season; he participated in the geophysical survey of the Ross Ice Shelf in the 1973-74 and 1974-75 seasons.

Sleek Spur

The spur is 8 nautical miles (15 km) southwest of Cape Parr where the confluent Nursery, Jorda, and Starshot Glaciers enter Ross Ice Shelf.

Van Loon Glacier

It was mapped by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) from surveys and U.S. Navy aerial photography, 1960–62, and was named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) for meteorologist Harry van Loon, a member of the Antarctic Weather Central team at Little America on the Ross Ice Shelf 1957-58, who has written numerous scientific papers dealing with Antarctic and southern hemisphere atmospheric research.