science

Amery Ice Shelf

Amery Ice Shelf is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Amery Ice Shelf rather than just read about it. In short: The Amery Ice Shelf (69°45′S 71°0′E) is a broad ice shelf in Antarctica at the head of Prydz Bay between the Lars Christensen Coast and Ingrid Christensen Coast. It is part of Mac.

Key takeaways

Amery Ice Shelf belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Amery Ice Shelf to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Amery Ice Shelf from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Amery Ice Shelf (69°45′S 71°0′E) is a broad ice shelf in Antarctica at the head of Prydz Bay between the Lars Christensen Coast and Ingrid Christensen Coast. It is part of Mac. Robertson Land. The name "Cape Amery" was applied to a coastal angle mapped on 11 February 1931 by the British Australian New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) under Douglas Mawson. He named it for William Bankes Amery, a civil servant who represented the United Kingdom government in Australia (1925–28). The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names interpreted this feature to be a portion of an ice shelf and, in 1947, applied the name Amery to the whole shelf. In 2001 two holes were drilled through the ice shelf by scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division and specially designed seabed sampling and photographic equipment was lowered to the underlying seabed. By studying the fossil composition of sediment samples recovered, scientists have inferred that a major retreat of the Amery Ice Shelf to at least 80 km landward of its present location may have occurred during the mid-Holocene climatic optimum (about 5,700 years ago). In December 2006, it was reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that Australian scientists were heading to the Amery Ice Shelf to investigate enormous cracks that had been forming for over a decade at a rate of three to five metres a day. Scientists wanted to discover what was causing the cracks, as there has not been similar activity since the 1960s. However, the head of research stated that it is too early to attribute the cause to global warming as there is the possibility of a natural 50-60 year cycle being responsible. Lambert Glacier flows from Lambert Graben into the Amery Ice Shelf on the southwest side of Prydz Bay. The Amery Basin (68°15′S 74°30′E) is an undersea basin north of the Amery Ice Shelf. The Chinese Antarctic Zhongshan Station and Russian Progress Station are located near this ice shelf. The Amery Ice Shelf is the third largest ice shelf in Antarctica, after the Ross Ice Shelf and the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf.

Calving

In September 2019, a large iceberg known as D-28 calved from the ice shelf. It was 1,636 square kilometres (632 sq mi) in size and with an estimated weight of 315 billion tonnes. As of October 2019, it continues to be monitored due to the threat it could pose to shipping channels. An adjacent ice formation, nicknamed the "loose tooth", was originally predicted to calve from the ice sheet between 2010 and 2015. In February 2020, D-28 was lodged against the edge of the shelf, and slowly drifting northwards. By May 2021, the iceberg had drifted 46 degrees west to the King Baudouin Ice Shelf, colliding with and destroying the Dog's Head Landing Site, an ice floe used for several years as a landing stage by the Belgian Antarctic Program.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Amery Ice Shelf

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Amery Ice Shelf claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Amery Ice Shelf before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Amery Ice Shelf ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Amery Ice Shelf

In research: Amery Ice Shelf appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Amery Ice Shelf in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Amery Ice Shelf is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Ice shelves of Antarctica, Ingrid Christensen Coast, King Edward VII Land, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Amery Ice Shelf outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Amery Ice Shelf in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Amery Ice Shelf means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Amery Ice Shelf out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Amery Ice Shelf in simple terms?

The Amery Ice Shelf (69°45′S 71°0′E) is a broad ice shelf in Antarctica at the head of Prydz Bay between the Lars Christensen Coast and Ingrid Christensen Coast. It is part of Mac.

Why does Amery Ice Shelf matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Amery Ice Shelf?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Amery Ice Shelf.