Amundsen Sea

The Amundsen Sea is a marginal sea of the Southern Ocean (or of the South Pacific in the old reading ) and is located off the west coast of Antarctica in the amount of 110 ° west longitude, between Cape Dart on Siple Iceland in the west and Cape Flying Fish on Thurston Iceland in East. To the east lies the Bellingshausen Sea, to the west the Ross Sea.

After the polar explorer Roald Amundsen named it was the Norwegians Nils Larsen, who explored the sea in February 1929 on board his ship Norvegia. As the sea is generally frozen tight with ice, the exact coastline was unknown until February 1940, as conducted by the U.S. Antarctic Service Expedition, under the direction of Richard Byrd reconnaissance flights in the region. 1946 tried two icebreakers as part of Operation High Jump, to cross the sea to get as close as possible to Mount Siple, but had to abort the project soon.

In the Amundsen Sea joins the Thwaites Glacier. From the glacier tongue broke out in 2002, a 3400 km ² from large iceberg.

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