Smith Glacier ( is a low-gradient

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

, over 160 km (100 mi) long, draining from

Toney Mountain Toney Mountain () is an elongated snow-covered shield volcano, long and rising to at Richmond Peak, located southwest of Kohler Range in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. Geology Toney Mountain is an elongated volcanic massif that rises - above ...

in an ENE direction to

Amundsen Sea The Amundsen Sea is an arm of the Southern Ocean off Marie Byrd Land in western Antarctica. It lies between Cape Flying Fish (the northwestern tip of Thurston Island) to the east and Cape Dart on Siple Island to the west. Cape Flying Fish ...

. A northern distributary,

Kohler Glacier Kohler Range () is a mountain range in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. The range is about long and stands between the base of Martin Peninsula and Smith Glacier. The range consists of two ice-covered plateaus punctuated by several rock peaks and ...

, drains to Dotson Ice Shelf but the main flow passes to the sea between

Bear Peninsula Bear Peninsula () is a peninsula about long and wide which is ice-covered except for several isolated rock bluffs and outcrops along its margins, lying east of Martin Peninsula on Walgreen Coast, Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. Location Th ...

and

Mount Murphy Mount Murphy () is a snow-covered mountain with steep, rocky slopes rising to https://worldribus.org/west-antarctica-ranges/ in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. It is directly south of Bear Peninsula and is bounded by Smith Glacier, Pope Glacier, a ...

, terminating at

Crosson Ice Shelf The Crosson Ice Shelf () is an ice shelf, about wide, located north and northeast of Mount Murphy along the Walgreen Coast of Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. The ice shelf is nurtured by Smith Glacier, Pope Glacier, Vane Glacier, and Haynes Glac ...

Location

The Smith Glacier originates on the north slopes of

, and flows northeast past the

Kohler Range Kohler Range () is a mountain range in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. The range is about long and stands between the base of Martin Peninsula and Smith Glacier. The range consists of two ice-covered plateaus punctuated by several rock peaks and ...

. The

, a distributary, splits off from the Smith Glacier and flows north into the

Maumee Ice Piedmont Maumee Ice Piedmont () is an ice piedmont at the terminus of Kohler Glacier, east of the Jenkins Heights, on the Walgreen Coast of Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. It was mapped by the United States Geological Survey from U.S. Navy aerial photographs ...

and the Dotson Ice Shelf to the west of the

. The main Smith Glacier flows past the southeast of the Bear Peninsula, past the Davis Ice Rise, to the

Davis Ice Rise

. An ice rise, long, near the terminus of Smith Glacier, southeast of Mayo Peak, Bear Peninsulat. Mapped by USGS from USN aerial photographs taken 1966 and Landsat imagery taken 1972-73. Named by US-ACAN after Commander Arthur R. Davis, USN, Supply Officer,

Operation Deep Freeze Operation Deep Freeze is the code name for a series of United States missions to Antarctica, beginning with "Operation Deep Freeze I" in 1955–56, followed by "Operation Deep Freeze II", "Operation Deep Freeze III", and so on. (There was an init ...

, 1975-76 and 1976-77.

Mapping and name

The Smith Glacier was mapped by

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on Mar ...

(USGS) from ground surveys and United States Navy air photos, 1959–65. It was named by the United States

Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names The Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (ACAN or US-ACAN) is an advisory committee of the United States Board on Geographic Names responsible for recommending commemorative names for features in Antarctica. History The committee was established ...

(US-ACAN) after Philip M. Smith (Smith Bluffs), Deputy Director, Office of Polar Programs, National Science Foundation, who in the period 1956–71 participated in many expeditions to Antarctica in field and supervisory capacities.

Glaciology

In 2001, Dr. Andrew Shepherd, a research fellow at the Center for Polar Observation and Modeling at University College London, said that Smith Glacier was losing mass quickly and contributing to the slow rise of the oceans. In 2011, Hamish Pritchard, a scientist with the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK, said that Smith Glacier was thinning at a rate of 27 feet per year. In 2016, a study published in the journal ''Nature Communication,'' which relied on airborne radar measurements, found that melting of the ice shelves’ grounding zones between the years 2000 and 2009 removed between 984 and about 1,607 feet of solid ice beneath the Smith Glacier. The Smith Glacier lost more ice than any other glacier studied for the report. The researchers found that the Smith Glacier retreated by about 21 miles during the period from 1996 to 2011. The scientists concluded that the size of the retreat was partly a result of both the unique topography underneath the ice that allowed more ocean water to sneak in between the ice and the land below.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * *{{Include-USGov , agency=United States Geological Survey Ice streams of Marie Byrd Land