An Ice Shelf Like No Other

Ice shelves are sheets of ice that are permanently floating and connect to a landmass. The shelves form when ice flows from land into the cold ocean water, and since they don’t melt immediately, they stack up, creating these colossal frost structures.

With most of the continent covered in ice, it isn’t surprising that Antarctica is home to one of the most extensive ice shelves in the world, the Ross Ice Shelf, which spans 510,680 square kilometers. That is one massive piece of ice just floating, and it is the southern-most navigable place in the world.