Bay of Whales

Bay of Whales: see Ross Sea; Antarctica.

Whales, Bay of: see Ross Sea; Antarctica.

Former inlet of the Ross Sea, Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica. It was first seen by the British explorer James C. Ross in 1842. The bay was the continent's most southerly open harbour in summer and was the site of several important bases for Antarctic exploration. More than 10 mi (16 km) wide in 1911, it gradually narrowed as advancing ice sheets collided. It disappeared entirely in 1987 when an iceberg 99 mi (159 km) long broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf.

Learn more about Whales, Bay of with a free trial on Britannica.com.

The Bay of Whales is an iceport indenting the front of Ross Ice Shelf just northward of Roosevelt Island. A natural ice harbor which generally forms here, it served as the base site for Roald Amundsen's successful expedition to the South Pole, 1911, the Byrd Antarctic Expeditions of 1928-1930 and 1933-1935, and for the West Base of U.S. Antarctic Service, 1939-1941.

The configuration of the iceport is continuously changing. A survey by the Byrd expedition in 1934 determined that the feature lay at the junction of two separate ice systems, the movements of which are influenced by the presence of Roosevelt Island. Commander Glen Jacobsen, USN, who visited in the Atka in January 1955, found that calving of the ice shelf rendered the iceport temporarily unusable. The feature was so named by Ernest Shackleton in the Nimrod, January 24, 1908, because of the large number of whales seen in it.

See also

• Framheim
• Walvisbaai (synonymous name, but tropical: in southwest Africa)