Figure 1. Antarctica's 10 largest ice shelf areas. (Source: NSIDC)

The Antarctic Ice Shelves are a set of frozen water landforms around the coastal zone of Antarctica. An ice shelf is a thick slab of ice, attached to a coastline and extending out over the ocean as a seaward extension of the grounded ice sheet. Ice shelves range in thickness from about 50 to 600 meters, and some shelves persist for thousands of years. In Antarctica, these ice shelves are generally in contact with the main Antarctic ice sheet. They fringe the continent of Antarctica, and, at their seaward edge, periodically calve tabular icebergs. There are 47 named ice shelves in Antarctica catalogued in the United States Geological Servey (USGS) Geographic Names Information Service (GNIS):

1. Abbot Ice Shelf
2. Amery Ice Shelf
3. Bach Ice Shelf
4. Brahms Ice Shelf
5. Britten Ice Shelf
6. Brunt Ice Shelf
7. Cook Ice Shelf
8. Cosgrove Ice Shelf
9. Crosson Ice Shelf
10. Dotson Ice Shelf
11. Edward VIII Ice Shelf
12. Ekström Ice Shelf
13. Filchner Ice Shelf
14. Fimbul Ice Shelf
15. George VI Ice Shelf
16. Getz Ice Shelf
17. Gillett Ice Shelf
18. Hannan Ice Shelf
19. Jelbart Ice Shelf
20. Jones Ice Shelf
21. Lady Newnes Ice Shelf
22. Larsen Ice Shelf (Larsen A and B)
23. Lazarev Ice Shelf
24. McMurdo Ice Shelf
25. Moscow University Ice Shelf
26. Müller Ice Shelf
27. Nickerson Ice Shelf
28. Prince Gustav Ice Shelf
29. Publications Ice Shelf
30. Quar Ice Shelf
31. Rameau Ice Shelf
32. Riiser-Larsen Ice Shelf
33. Ronne Ice Shelf
34. Ross Ice Shelf
35. Shackleton Ice Shelf
36. Slava Ice Shelf
37. Stange Ice Shelf
38. Sulzberger Ice Shelf
39. Swinburne Ice Shelf
40. Venable Ice Shelf
41. Verdi Ice Shelf
42. Voyeykov Ice Shelf
43. West Ice Shelf
44. Wilkins Ice Shelf
45. Wordie Ice Shelf
46. Wyers Ice Shelf
47. Zubchatyy Ice Shelf

See Also

• Antactica Collection of the Encyclopedia of Earth