Rutford Ice Stream () is a major Antarctic

ice stream An ice stream is a region of fast-moving ice within an ice sheet. It is a type of glacier, a body of ice that moves under its own weight. They can move upwards of a year, and can be up to in width, and hundreds of kilometers in length. They t ...

, about long and over wide, which drains southeastward between the

Sentinel Range The Sentinel Range is a major mountain range situated northward of Minnesota Glacier and forming the northern half of the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica. The range trends NNW-SSE for about and is 24 to 48 km (15 to 30 mi) wide. Ma ...

Ellsworth Mountains The Ellsworth Mountains are the highest mountain ranges in Antarctica, forming a long and wide chain of mountains in a north to south configuration on the western margin of the Ronne Ice Shelf in Marie Byrd Land. They are bisected by Minnesota ...

and Fletcher Ice Rise into the southwest part of Ronne Ice Shelf. Named by US-ACAN for geologist Robert Hoxie Rutford, a member of several USARP expeditions to Antarctica; leader of the University of Minnesota Ellsworth Mountains Party, 1963-1964. Rutford served as Director of the Division of Polar Programs, National Science Foundation, 1975-1977. The ice stream is situated in a deep trough which is a tectonic feature between the Ellsworth Mountains and the Fletcher Promontory. Because of this the ice stream position may have been stable for millions of years. The bed of the ice stream reaches below sea level. Therefore, between the bed of the ice stream and the height of the Ellsworth Mountains there is a vertical

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

of over a distance of only . At the upper (inland) end of the ice stream the ice thickness reaches falling to around in the trough. Flow speed reaches a maximum of around per year about inland from where the ice stream meets the Ronne Ice Shelf and starts to float on the sea. The speed of the Rutford ice stream varies by as much as 20% every two weeks, in response to variations in the tides.ScienceDaily, ''Tidal Motion Influences Antarctic Ice Sheet'' Dec. 24, 2006
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Tributary glaciers

* Yamen Glacier * Vicha Glacier * Newcomer Glacier *

Vit Ice Piedmont Vit Ice Piedmont ( bg, ледник Вит, lednik Vit, ) is the glacier extending 12 km in north-south direction and 6 km in east-west direction in Sostra Heights on the east side of northern Sentinel Range in Ellsworth Mountains, Ant ...

* Embree Glacier * Young Glacier * Ranuli Ice Piedmont * Ellen Glacier * Lardeya Ice Piedmont * Guerrero Glacier * Hough Glacier *

Remington Glacier Remington Glacier is a steep glacier about long in Doyran Heights in the Sentinel Range of Ellsworth Mountains, Antarctica. It rises just north of McPherson Peak and flows east-southeast to debouch between the terminus of Hough Glacier and ...

Thomas Glacier Thomas Glacier () is a roughly Z-shaped glacier which drains the southeast slopes of Vinson Massif and flows for 17 nautical miles (31 km) through the south part of the Sentinel Range, Ellsworth Mountains, leaving the range between Doyra ...

* Razboyna Glacier * Drama Glacier * Gabare Glacier * Divdyadovo Glacier *

Minnesota Glacier Minnesota Glacier () is a broad glacier, about long and wide, flowing east through the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica, separating the Sentinel Range and the Heritage Range. It is nourished by ice from the plateau west of the mountains an ...

Union Glacier Union Glacier (), is a large, heavily crevassed glacier which receives the flow of several tributaries and drains through the middle of the Heritage Range, Ellsworth Mountains, Antarctica. The glacier drains from the plateau at Edson Hills ...

References

{{authority control West Antarctica Ellsworth Mountains Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf Ice streams of Queen Elizabeth Land

Tributary glaciers

See also

Further reading

References