The East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) is one of two large ice sheets in Antarctica, and the largest on the entire planet. The EAIS lies between 45° West and 168° East longitudinally.
The EAIS is considerably larger in area and mass than the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). It is separated from the WAIS by the Transantarctic Mountains. The EAIS rests upon a large land mass, contrary to that of the WAIS, which rests mainly on bedrock below sea level. The EAIS is also home to the thickest ice on the Antarctic continent, at 15,700 ft (4,800 m). More well known, however, is that the EAIS is home to the South Pole.
Read more about East Antarctic Ice Sheet: Ice Mass Changes, Temperature Changes, Territorial Claims
Famous quotes containing the words east, ice and/or sheet:
“In order to get to East Russet you take the Vermont Central as far as Twitchell’s Falls and change there for Torpid River Junction, where a spur line takes you right into Gormley. At Gormley you are met by a buckboard which takes you back to Torpid River Junction again.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Will lovely, lively, virginal today
Shatter for us with a wing’s drunken blow
This hard, forgotten lake haunted in snow
By the sheer ice of flocks not flown away!”
—Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898)
“A speck that would have been beneath my sight
On any but a paper sheet so white
Set off across what I had written there.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)