Ice Shelf
An ice shelf is a floating ice mass that is attached to the coast along at least one edge. Ice shelves form when large areas of land based ice sheets have flowed to the coast and then floated in the ocean. Either the ice will stay attached to the ice sheet as an ice shelf, or it will calve (break off) to form icebergs.
Ross Ice Shelf
Much of Antarctica is fringed by ice shelves and of these; the Ross Ice Shelf is the largest, covering an area about the same size as Texas or France. Its mean ice thickness is 335m to 700m, but where glaciers and ice streams meet it, the shelf is up to 1000m thick. It is very hard to believe, but the whole ice shelf is actually floating.
Glaciologists use satellite data to monitor not only when a giant iceberg breaks off one of Antarctica’s ice shelves, but also to measure its progress away from the continent. Other research on the ice shelves concentrates on determining flow rates to see how quickly ice is moving off the continent, and how rapidly the shelf ice thins from the melting of its underside.
Ships in Antarctica try to steer clear of the ice sheet edge as having an iceberg calve onto your ship can be quite upsetting!
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