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A map of West Antarctica. The total volume of the entire Antarctic ice sheet is estimated at 26.92 million km 3 (6.46 million cu mi), [2] while the WAIS contains about 2.1 million km 3 (530,000 cu mi) in ice that is above the sea level, and ~1 million km 3 (240,000 cu mi) in ice that is below it. [20]
West Antarctica, or Lesser Antarctica, one of the two major regions of Antarctica, is the part of that continent that lies within the Western Hemisphere, and includes the Antarctic Peninsula. It is separated from East Antarcticaby the Transantarctic Mountainsand is covered by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It lies between the Ross Sea(partly ...
The Antarctic ice sheet is a continental glacier covering 98% of the Antarctic continent, with an area of 14 million square kilometres (5.4 million square miles) and an average thickness of over 2 kilometres (1.2 mi). It is the largest of Earth's two current ice sheets, containing 26.5 million cubic kilometres (6,400,000 cubic miles) of ice ...
The Ross Ice Shelf is the main outlet for several major glaciers draining the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which contains the equivalent of 5 m of sea level rise in its above-sea-level ice." The report added that observations of "iceberg calving" on the Ross Ice Shelf are, in their opinion, unrelated to its stability. [10]
The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) lies between 45° west and 168° east longitudinally. It was first formed around 34 million years ago, [77] and it is the largest ice sheet on the entire planet, with far greater volume than the Greenland ice sheet or the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), from which it is separated by the Transantarctic Mountains.
At this time, the Antarctic Peninsula formed as the bedrock islands underlying it were overridden and joined by an ice sheet in the early Pliocene about 5.3–3.6 Ma. During the Quaternary period, the size of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has fluctuated in response to glacial–interglacial cycles. During glacial epochs, this ice sheet was ...
Map of various volcanoes found underneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. [40] Swamp-like canal areas and streams underlie the glacier. The upstream swamp canals feed streams, while the dry areas between those streams retard flow of the glacier. Due to this friction, the glacier is considered stable in the short term. [41]
West Antarctic Rift System (between red dash lines). Dots are geologic drill holes. Insert map shows approximate extent. Exploration of the geology of the West Antarctic Rift System is limited because apart from peaks of the Transantarctic Mountains that protrude above the ice, much of the region is covered by the Ross Ice Shelf and the vast West Antarctic Ice Sheet.