The Axel Heiberg Glacier is a valley glacier, 48 km (30 mi) long, descending from the high elevations of the Antarctic Plateau into the Ross Ice Shelf (nearly at sea level) between the Herbert Range and Mount Don Pedro Christophersen in the Queen Maud Mountains.
This huge glacier was discovered in November 1911 by the Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen, and named by him for Axel Heiberg, a Norwegian businessman and patron of science, who contributed to numerous Norwegian polar expeditions. Amundsen used this glacier as his route up onto the polar plateau on his successful expedition to the South Pole.
Famous quotes containing the word glacier:
““The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)