Vivaldi Glacier () is a

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 ...

lying between the

Colbert Mountains The Colbert Mountains () are a group of isolated mountains with several rounded snow-covered summits, the highest at , overlooking Handel Ice Piedmont between Haydn Inlet and Schubert Inlet in the west central part of Alexander Island. It was f ...

and the Lully Foothills, flowing south from

Purcell Snowfield Purcell Snowfield () is a snowfield, 15 nautical miles (28 km) wide, lying between the east portion of the Colbert Mountains and the west side of the Douglas Range in the central part of Alexander Island, Antarctica. The feature was mapped fro ...

into the head of

Schubert Inlet Schubert Inlet () is an ice-filled inlet in Antarctica. Description Schubert Inlet is long and wide, indenting the west coast of Alexander Island, lying between the Colbert Mountains north of the inlet and the Walton Mountains south of the in ...

on the west coast of

Alexander Island Alexander Island, which is also known as Alexander I Island, Alexander I Land, Alexander Land, Alexander I Archipelago, and Zemlja Alexandra I, is the largest island of Antarctica. It lies in the Bellingshausen Sea west of Palmer Land, Antarcti ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

. The feature appears to be first shown on maps of the

United States Antarctic Service The United States Antarctic Program (or USAP; formerly known as the United States Antarctic Research Program or USARP and the United States Antarctic Service or USAS) is an organization of the United States government which has a presence in the ...

(USAS) which photographed Alexander Island from the air in 1940. It was mapped from air photos obtained by the

Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition The Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE) was an expedition from 1947–1948 which researched the area surrounding the head of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. Background Finn Ronne led the RARE which was the final privately sponsored exp ...

in 1947–48, by Searle of the

Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey The Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition (FIDASE) was an aerial survey of the Falkland Islands Dependencies The Falkland Islands Dependencies was the constitutional arrangement from 1843 until 1985 for administering the v ...

in 1960. Named "Vivaldi Gap" by the

United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee (or UK-APC) is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory (BAT) and ...

in 1961, after

Antonio Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist, impresario of Baroque music and Roman Catholic priest. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lif ...

(1678–1741), Venetian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

. The name was amended to Vivaldi Glacier following review of

Landsat program The Landsat program is the longest-running enterprise for acquisition of satellite imagery of Earth. It is a joint National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA / United States Geological Survey, USGS program. On 23 July 1972, the Landsa ...

imagery, 1979, displaying flow lines in the feature.

See also