Skelton Glacier is a large

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 ...

flowing from the polar plateau into 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 ...

Skelton Inlet The Skelton Inlet is an ice-filled inlet at the terminus of the Skelton Glacier, along the western edge of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. The feature is about 16 km (10 mi) wide at the entry points between Cape Timberlake and Fishta ...

on the

Hillary Coast The Hillary Coast is a portion of the coast of Antarctica along the western margin of the Ross Ice Shelf between Minna Bluff and Cape Selborne. It was named by the New Zealand Antarctic Place-Names Committee in 1961 for Sir Edmund Hillary, the le ...

, south of

Victoria Land Victoria Land is a region in eastern Antarctica which fronts the western side of the Ross Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf, extending southward from about 70°30'S to 78°00'S, and westward from the Ross Sea to the edge of the Antarctic Plateau. It ...

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 ...

Discovery and naming

Named after the Skelton Inlet by the

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

party of the CTAE, 1956–58. The glacier was chosen in 1957 as the New Zealand party's route from the

to the polar plateau in support of the main expedition led by

Vivian Fuchs Sir Vivian Ernest Fuchs ( ; 11 February 1908 – 11 November 1999) was an English scientist-explorer and expedition organizer. He led the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition which reached the South Pole overland in 1958. Biography Fuchs ...

to make the first overland crossing of the continent. Allison Glacier descends from the west slopes of Royal Society Range into Skelton Glacier. It was also the route of the four month Victoria Land Traverse 1959-1960 which ascended the Skelton Glacier from the Ross Ice Shelf to make the first entry into the deep interior of Victoria Land from the head of the Skelton Glacier to the French Adelie Land Traverse of 1958-1959 near

Dumont d'Urville Station The Dumont d'Urville Station (french: Base antarctique Dumont-d'Urville) is a French scientific station in Antarctica on Île des Pétrels, Geologie Archipelago, archipelago of Pointe-Géologie in Adélie Land. It is named after exploration, exp ...

George V Coast George V Coast () is that portion of the coast of Antarctica lying between Point Alden, at 148°2′E, and Cape Hudson, at 153°45′E. Portions of this coast were sighted by the US Exploring Expedition in 1840. It was explored by members of t ...

, and thence to the Transantarctic Mountains in the vicinity of the USARP Mountains.

Discovery and naming

See also

References

Further reading