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An image of Antarctica differentiating its landmass (dark grey) from its ice shelves (minimum extent, light grey, and maximum extent, white) Edge of Ekstrom Ice Shelf. Ice shelves are attached to a large portion of the Antarctic coastline. Their total area is 1,541,700 km 2. [1]
Antarctica is the fifth-largest continent, being about 40% larger than Europe, and has an area of 14,200,000 km 2 (5,500,000 sq mi). Most of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet, with an average thickness of 1.9 km (1.2 mi).
The Marie Byrd Land makes up a large portion of West Antarctica, consisting of the Area below the Antarctic Peninsula. The Marie Byrd land is a large formation of volcanic rock, characterized by 18 exposed and subglacial volcanoes. 16 of the 18 volcanoes are entirely covered by the antarctic ice sheet. [ 10 ]
This list includes all islands in the world larger than 1,000 km 2 (390 sq mi). For size and location reference, the four continental landmasses are also shown. Continental landmasses Continental landmasses are not usually classified as islands despite being completely surrounded by water. [Note 1] However, because the definition of continent varies between geographers, the Americas are ...
A satellite composite image of Antarctica. Earth's south polar land mass, Antarctica, is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet.It covers an area of about 14.6 million km 2 and contains between 25 and 30 million km 3 of ice.
The melting of Antarctica is accelerating at an alarming rate, with about 3 trillion tons of ice disappearing since 1992, an international team of ice experts said in a new study.
Location and diagram of Lake Vostok, a prominent subglacial lake beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.. East Antarctic Ice Sheet is located directly above the East Antarctic Shield – a craton (stable area of the Earth's crust) with the area of 10,200,000 km 2 (3,900,000 sq mi), which accounts for around 73% of the entire Antarctic landmass. [19]
East Antarctica is the larger and has a higher average elevation. Separating the two subcontinents is a lower elevation topographic region occupied by the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ross Sea. This region is referred to as the Ross Embayment. The embayment comprises an area of approximately 1,137,000 square kilometres (439,000 sq mi).