Ice shelf

An ice shelf is a thick floating platform of ice attached to land and projects out to sea. Ice shelves fringe the periphery of coastal embayments in Antarctica, Greenland and the Canadian Arctic islands. An Ice shelf has the following distinguishing features:

• Has a fairly level or gently undulating surface
• Is attached to the coast of an ocean or lake along at least one edge
• The seward edge floats freely in deep water
• Can be 650 to 980 feet thick and may extend hundreds of miles out to sea from the coastline
• Contains frozen fresh water ice (formed from snow accumulation or glacier ice)
• More ice is added to shelf from flow of the ice on land and from new snow