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:
“Before I finally went into winter quarters in November, I used to resort to the north- east side of Walden, which the sun, reflected from the pitch pine woods and the stony shore, made the fireside of the pond; it is so much pleasanter and wholesomer to be warmed by the sun while you can be, than by an artificial fire. I thus warmed myself by the still glowing embers which the summer, like a departed hunter, had left.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Like the water, the Walden ice, seen near at hand, has a green tint, but at a distance is beautifully blue, and you can easily tell it from the white ice of the river, or the merely greenish ice of some ponds, a quarter of a mile off.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“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)