Halley Bay was a location on the fast ice on the north-western margin of the

Brunt Ice Shelf The Brunt Ice Shelf borders the Antarctic coast of Coats Land between Dawson-Lambton Glacier and Stancomb-Wills Glacier Tongue. It was named by the UK Antarctic Place-names Committee after David Brunt, British meteorologist, Physical Secretary ...

Coats Land Coats Land is a region in Antarctica which lies westward of Queen Maud Land and forms the eastern shore of the Weddell Sea, extending in a general northeast–southwest direction between 20°00′W and 36°00′W. The northeast part was discove ...

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 ...

. The series of British

Halley Research Station Halley Research Station is a research facility in Antarctica on the Brunt Ice Shelf operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The base was established in 1956 to study the Earth's atmosphere. Measurements from Halley led to the discov ...

s were constructed near here and named after the bay. The original ice bay was transitory and no longer exists although other bays in the same area keep reforming and breaking off as the shelf calves into icebergs. The location contains a 177 ha site which has been designated an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) by

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

because it supported a breeding colony of about 22,500

emperor penguin The emperor penguin (''Aptenodytes forsteri'') is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica. The male and female are similar in plumage and size, reaching in length and weighing from . Feathers of th ...

s (estimated from 2009 satellite imagery) although as of 2019 the colony has dispersed due to repeated failure of the sea ice. In addition to the recent seasonal failures of ice the Brunt Ice shelf is approaching a large calving event which will reshape this section of coast and leave the original location of Halley Bay many Km out at sea.

References

Important Bird Areas of Antarctica Penguin colonies Bodies of ice of Coats Land {{CoatsLand-geo-stub