Downes Glacier () is a broad
tidewater glacier on the north side of
Heard Island
The Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands (HIMI) is an Australian external territory comprising a volcanic group of mostly barren Antarctic islands, about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica. The group's overall size ...
in the southern
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
. It flows north on both sides of
Cape Bidlingmaier to the north coast of Heard Island.
To the east of Downes Glacier is
Ealey Glacier
Ealey Glacier () is a glacier, flowing northeast from the lower slopes of the Big Ben massif to the northeast side of Heard Island in the southern Indian Ocean. Its terminus is located close southeast of Cape Bidlingmaier, between Melbourne Bluf ...
, whose
terminus is located close southeast of Cape Bidlingmaier. To the west of Downes Glacier is
Challenger Glacier, whose terminus is located at the eastern side of
Corinthian Bay, close west to
Saddle Point
In mathematics, a saddle point or minimax point is a point on the surface of the graph of a function where the slopes (derivatives) in orthogonal directions are all zero (a critical point), but which is not a local extremum of the function ...
. Saddle Point separates Downes Glacier from Challenger Glacier.
Discovery and naming
Surveyed by ANARE (
Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions
The Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE ) is the historical name for the Australian Antarctic Program (AAp) administered for Australia by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).
History
Australia has had a long involv ...
) in 1948. Named by
Antarctic Names Committee of Australia (ANCA) for
M.C. Downes, ANARE biologist at Heard Island in 1951 and 1963.
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References
Further reading
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External links
*Clic
here
to see a map of Heard Island and McDonald Islands, including all major topographical features
Australian Antarctic DivisionAustralian Antarctic GazetteerComposite Gazetteer of AntarcticaAustralian Antarctic Names and Medals Committee (AANMC)United States Geological Survey, Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR)
{{Glaciers of Heard Island and McDonald Islands
Glaciers of Heard Island and McDonald Islands