shelf-ice

Two hundred yards from the brink, the shelf-ice was thrown into pressure-undulations and fissured by crevasses, but beyond that was apparently sound and unbroken.

The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 Douglas Mawson 1920

After a consultation, Davis and Wild decided that under the circumstances an attempt should be made to gain a footing on the adjacent shelf-ice, if nothing better presented itself.

The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 Douglas Mawson 1920

** Subsequently this shelf-ice formation was found to be a floating glacier-tongue sixty miles in length, the seaward extension of a large glacier which we named the Mertz Glacier.

The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 Douglas Mawson 1920

The shelf-ice was seen to be securely attached to it and, near its point of junction with the undulating land-ice, we beheld the mountains of this mysterious land haloed in ghostly mist.

The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 Douglas Mawson 1920

At 11 P.M. the 'Aurora' entered a bay, ten miles wide, bounded on the east by the shelf-ice wall and on the west by a steep snow-covered promontory rising approximately two thousand feet in height, as yet seen dimly in hazy outline through the mist.

The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 Douglas Mawson 1920

The ice-sheet terminating in this wall presented a more broken surface than the floating shelf-ice.

The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 Douglas Mawson 1920

** A table-topped berg in the act of formation was seen, separated from the parent body of shelf-ice by a deep fissure several yards in width.

The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 Douglas Mawson 1920

The glacier-tongue bore all the characters of shelf-ice, by which is meant a floating extension of the land-ice.

The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 Douglas Mawson 1920

In all, thirty-six tons of stores were raised on to the shelf-ice, one hundred feet above sea-level, in four days.

The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 Douglas Mawson 1920

At a distance, large bergs would be undistinguishable from shelf-ice, appearances of which were reported above.

The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 Douglas Mawson 1920