Amundsen Coast
Encyclopedia
Amundsen Coast is that portion of the coast to the south of the Ross Ice Shelf
Ross Ice Shelf
The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica . It is several hundred metres thick. The nearly vertical ice front to the open sea is more than 600 km long, and between 15 and 50 metres high above the water surface...

 lying between Morris Peak
Morris Peak
Morris Peak is a prominent peak marking the northwest end of the Duncan Mountains, at the east side of the mouth of Liv Glacier where the latter enters Ross Ice Shelf. Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names for Lieutenant Commander H.C. Morris, U.S. Navy, commanding officer of the USS...

, on the east side of Liv Glacier
Liv Glacier
Liv Glacier is a steep valley glacier, long, emerging from the Antarctic Plateau just southeast of Barnum Peak and draining north through the Queen Maud Mountains to enter Ross Ice Shelf between Mayer Crags and Duncan Mountains. Discovered in 1911 by Roald Amundsen, who named it for the daughter...

, and the west side of the Scott Glacier
Scott Glacier (Transantarctic Mountains)
The Scott Glacier is a major glacier, 120 miles long, that drains the East Antarctic Ice Sheet through the Queen Maud Mountains to the Ross Ice Shelf...

. Named by New Zealand Antarctic Place-Names Committee
New Zealand Antarctic Place-Names Committee
New Zealand Antarctic Place-Names Committee is an adjudicating committee established to authorize the naming of features in the Ross Dependency on the Antarctic continent. It is composed of the members of the New Zealand Geographic Board plus selected specialists on Antarctica...

 in 1961 for Captain Roald Amundsen
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage....

, the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 explorer who led his own expedition in 1910–12 to the Antarctic
Antarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...

. Setting up a base at Framheim
Framheim
Framheim was the name of explorer Roald Amundsen's base at the Bay of Whales on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica during his quest for the South Pole...

 at the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, he sledged southward across the shelf and discovered a route up the Axel Heiberg Glacier
Axel Heiberg Glacier
The Axel Heiberg Glacier is a valley glacier, long, descending from the high-elevations of the Antarctic Plateau into the Ross Ice Shelf between the Herbert Range and Mount Don Pedro Christophersen in the Queen Maud Mountains....

 along this coast to reach the polar plateau
Plateau
In geology and earth science, a plateau , also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau...

. He was the first to reach the South Pole
South Pole
The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is one of the two points where the Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface. It is the southernmost point on the surface of the Earth and lies on the opposite side of the Earth from the North Pole...

, December 14, 1911.
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