Charcot Fan () is a deep-sea formation in the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-small ...

. It lies off the coast of the West Antarctic

Ellsworth Land Ellsworth Land is a portion of the Antarctic continent bounded on the west by Marie Byrd Land, on the north by Bellingshausen Sea, on the northeast by the base of Antarctic Peninsula, and on the east by the western margin of the Filchner–Ron ...

. The Charcot Fan is an

abyssal fan Abyssal fans, also known as deep-sea fans, underwater deltas, and submarine fans, are underwater geological structures associated with large-scale sediment deposition and formed by turbidity currents. They can be thought of as an underwater ve ...

specifically located between the

Bellingshausen Plain Bellingshausen Plain (), also known as Bellinghausen Abyssal Plain, is an undersea plain parallel to the continental rise in the Bellingshausen Sea, named for Admiral Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen, commander of the Russian Antarctic Expedition ...

and the continental shelf of the

Bellingshausen Sea The Bellingshausen Sea is an area along the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula between 57°18'W and 102°20'W, west of Alexander Island, east of Cape Flying Fish on Thurston Island, and south of Peter I Island (there the southern ''Vostokkyste ...

. It is named after the French polar explorer

Jean-Baptiste Charcot Jean-Baptiste-Étienne-Auguste Charcot (15 July 1867 – 16 September 1936), born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, was a French scientist, medical doctor and polar scientist. His father was the neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893). Life Jean-Ba ...

(1867–1936). The US Advisory Committee for Undersea Features (ACUF) confirmed the designation in June 1988.

References

{{antarctica-geo-stub Geography of Antarctica