The Beardmore Glacier in

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

is one of the largest valley

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 ...

s in the world, being long and having a width of . It descends about from the

Antarctic Plateau The Antarctic Plateau, Polar Plateau or King Haakon VII Plateau is a large area of East Antarctica which extends over a diameter of about , and includes the region of the geographic South Pole and the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station. This h ...

to the

Ross Ice Shelf The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica (, an area of roughly and about across: about the size of France). It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than long, and between hi ...

and is bordered by the

Commonwealth Range The Commonwealth Range is a north-south trending range of rugged mountains, long, located within the Queen Maud Mountains on the Dufek Coast of the continent of Antarctica. The range borders the eastern side of Beardmore Glacier from the Ross ...

of the

Queen Maud Mountains The Queen Maud Mountains are a major group of mountains, ranges and subordinate features of the Transantarctic Mountains, lying between the Beardmore and Reedy Glaciers and including the area from the head of the Ross Ice Shelf to the Antarctic P ...

on the eastern side and the

Queen Alexandra Range The Queen Alexandra Range is a major mountain range of the Transantarctic Mountains System, located in the Ross Dependency region of Antarctica. It is about long, bordering the entire western side of Beardmore Glacier from the Polar Plateau to ...

of the Central

Transantarctic Mountains The Transantarctic Mountains (abbreviated TAM) comprise a mountain range of uplifted (primarily sedimentary rock, sedimentary) rock in Antarctica which extend, with some interruptions, across the continent from Cape Adare in northern Victoria La ...

on the western. The glacier is one of the main passages through the

to the great polar plateau beyond, and was one of the early routes to the

South Pole The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole, Terrestrial South Pole or 90th Parallel South, is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipod ...

despite its steep upward incline. The glacier was discovered and climbed by

Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of ...

during his ''Nimrod'' Expedition of 1908. Although Shackleton turned back at latitude 88° 23' S, just from the South Pole, he established the first proven route towards the pole and, in doing so, became the first person to set foot upon the polar plateau. In 1911–1912,

Captain Scott Captain Robert Falcon Scott, , (6 June 1868 – c. 29 March 1912) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the ''Discovery'' expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated ''Terra Nov ...

and his ''Terra Nova'' Expedition team reached the South Pole by similarly climbing the Beardmore. However, they reached the pole a month after

Roald Amundsen Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen bega ...

and his

team A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson (academic), Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interde ...

, who had chosen a route up the previously unknown

Axel Heiberg Glacier The Axel Heiberg Glacier in Antarctica is a valley glacier, long, descending from the high elevations of the Antarctic Plateau into the Ross Ice Shelf (nearly at sea level) between the Herbert Range and Mount Don Pedro Christophersen in the Que ...

. It was on the way back to the Nova expedition's base camp after they left the South Pole that

Edgar Evans Petty Officer Edgar Evans (7 March 1876 – 17 February 1912) was a Royal Navy officer and member of the "Polar Party" in Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, ''Terra Nova'' Expedition to the South Pole in 1911–1912. ...

, one of the members of Scott's chosen team to go to on the final trek to the South Pole, died around the foot of Beardmore Glacier on February 17, 1912. Beardmore Glacier was named by Shackleton after

Sir William Beardmore William Beardmore, 1st Baron Invernairn DL (16 October 1856 – 9 April 1936), known as Sir William Beardmore, Bt, between 1914 and 1921, was a British industrialist, founding the eponymous William Beardmore and Company. Background and educatio ...

, a Scottish industrialist and expedition sponsor. However,

Ranulph Fiennes Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 3rd Baronet (born 7 March 1944), commonly known as Sir Ranulph Fiennes () and sometimes as Ran Fiennes, is a British explorer, writer and poet, who holds several endurance records. Fiennes served in the ...

writes that Shackleton had previously told Beardmore's wife, Elspeth, that he would name a glacier after her and it is possible that is what Shackleton actually did. In 2016 the first beetle fossils, in the form of wing-cases (

elytra An elytron (; ; , ) is a modified, hardened forewing of beetles (Coleoptera), though a few of the true bugs (Hemiptera) such as the family Schizopteridae are extremely similar; in true bugs, the forewings are called hemelytra (sometimes alterna ...

) of

Ball's Antarctic tundra beetle ''Antarctotrechus balli'', with a proposed vernacular name of Ball's Antarctic tundra beetle (in honor of the beetle scientist George Ball), is a long-extinct beetle that used to inhabit the temperate climate of what is now Antarctica. It was l ...

, 14 to 20 million years old, were found on the glacier.

References

{{Authority control Glaciers of Shackleton Coast Glaciers of Dufek Coast

See also

References