Astrolabe Glacier is a
glacier
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...
wide and long, flowing north-northeast from the continental ice and terminating at the coast in a prominent tongue at the east side of
Geologie Archipelago. It was first sighted in 1840 by the French expedition under Captain
Jules Dumont d'Urville
Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville (; 23 May 1790 – 8 May 1842) was a French explorer and naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica. As a botanist and cartographer, he gave his nam ...
, although no glaciers were noted on d'Urville's chart of this coast but a formidable icy dike with perpendicular flanks of 37.7 m high according to the joined plate, corresponding to the glacier tongue.
''Prise de possession de la Terre Adélie'' (plate 171 of ''Voyage au Pôle sud et dans l'Océanie sur les corvettes "l'Astrolabe" et "la Zélée"''), site of Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty, Documents, Historic Sites and Monuments : view from the west towards the glacier tongue on January 22, 1840.
/ref> The glacier was photographed from the air by U.S. Navy Operation Highjump in January 1947. It was charted by the French Antarctic Expedition
The French Antarctic Expedition is any of several French expeditions in Antarctica.
First expedition
In 1772, Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec and the naturalist Jean Guillaume Bruguière sailed to the Antarctic region in search of the fable ...
, 1949–51, and named after d'Urville's flagship, the ''Astrolabe''.
The Astrolabe Glacier Tongue () is a prominent glacier tongue about wide and long, extending northeast from Astrolabe Glacier.
See also
* List of glaciers in the Antarctic
There are many glaciers in the Antarctic. This set of lists does not include ice sheets, ice caps or ice fields, such as the Antarctic ice sheet, but includes glacial features that are defined by their flow, rather than general bodies of ice. Th ...
* Glaciology
Glaciology (; ) is the scientific study of glaciers, or more generally ice and natural phenomena that involve ice.
Glaciology is an interdisciplinary Earth science that integrates geophysics, geology, physical geography, geomorphology, climato ...
References
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Footnotes
Glaciers of Adélie Land
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