Amery Ice Shelf (redirected from Amery Basin)

Amery Ice Shelf 

an ice shelf in eastern Antarctica, between the Lars Christensen and Ingrid Christensen coasts. The Amery Ice Shelf measures more than 200 km in length and ranges in thickness from 400 m to 800 m. It extends 250 km into the continent and merges in the south with the Lambert Glacier, its main source. The shelf has an area of approximately 40,000 sq km. In 1964 a huge iceberg covering an area of approximately 11,000 sq km broke off from the shelf.

The shelf was discovered in 1931 by an expedition sponsored by Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand and was named for W. B. Amery, a representative of the British government in Australia. Amery Base, a temporary Australian station, was used to conduct research on the shelf in 1968. Soviet antarctic expeditions carried out detailed geological and geographical research from 1971 to 1974 at the temporary Sodruzhestvo Station.