Arms of the British Antarctic Territory

Brunt Ice Shelf

(Caird Coast)

British Antarctic Territory

Location: 75° 18' 18" S 23° 53' 1" W
extending from Dawson Lambton Ice Stream NE to the NW side of Stancomb-Wills Glacier Tongue, Caird Coast, was sighted by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition in March 1904 and subsequently by the British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in January 1915 (Caird Coast, q.v.); provided the site for the Royal Society the International Geophysical Year Expedition to Antarctica station, 1955-59 (Halley, q.v.); was named after Sir David Brunt (1886-1965), meteorologist; Physical Secretary of the Royal Society, 1948-57, who was responsible for the initiation of the Royal Society the International Geophysical Year Expedition to Antarctica. The ice shelf was surveyed from the ground by the British Antarctic Survey from Halley in 1967 and 1970 (Thomas, 1973), and photographed from the air by the US National Science Foundation in 1967-68 and 1969-70; its extent was shown on US LANDSAT imagery of February 1974. The definition was revised accordingly.