*** Welcome to piglix ***

Weddell Sea


The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha Coast, Queen Maud Land. To the east of Cape Norvegia is the King Haakon VII Sea. Much of the southern part of the sea is covered by a permanent, massive ice shelf field, the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf (not pack ice). The sea is contained within the two overlapping Antarctic territorial claims of Argentina, (Argentine Antarctica) and Britain (British Antarctic Territory), and also resides partially within the territorial claim of Chile (Antarctic Chilean Territory). At its widest the sea is around 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) across, and its area is around 2.8 million square kilometres (1.1×10^6 sq mi).

Various ice shelves, including the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, fringe the Weddell sea. Some of the ice shelves on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula, which formerly covered roughly 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 sq mi) of the Weddell Sea, had completely disappeared by 2002; see "Antarctica" at Retreat of glaciers since 1850. Whilst a dramatic event, the area that disappeared was far smaller than the total area of ice shelf that remains.


...
Wikipedia

...