The Axel Heiberg Glacier is a valley glacier

Glacier

A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...

, 48 km (29.8 mi) long, descending from the high-elevations of the Antarctic Plateau

Antarctic Plateau

The Antarctic Plateau is a large area of Central Antarctica, which extends over a diameter of about , and which includes the region of the South Pole and the Amundsen-Scott Station...

 into 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...

 (nearly at sea level

Sea level

Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...

) between the Herbert Range

Herbert Range

The Herbert Range is a mountain range in the Queen Maud Mountains of Antarctica, extending from the edge of the polar plateau to the Ross Ice Shelf between the Axel Heiberg and Strom glaciers....

 and Mount Don Pedro Christophersen

Mount Don Pedro Christophersen

Mount Don Pedro Christophersen is a massive, largely ice-covered, gabled mountain , surmounting the divide between the heads of Axel Heiberg and Cooper Glaciers, in the Queen Maud Mountains. Discovered in 1911 by Roald Amundsen, who named it for one of the expedition's chief supporters who lived...

 in the Queen Maud Mountains

Queen Maud Mountains

The Queen Maud Mountains are a major group of mountains, ranges and subordinate features of the Transantarctic Mountains, lying between the Beardmore and Reedy Glaciers and including the area from the head of the Ross Ice Shelf to the polar plateau in Antarctica...

.

This huge glacier was discovered in November 1911 by the Norwegian polar explorer 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....

, and named by him for Axel Heiberg

Axel Heiberg

Axel Heiberg was a Norwegian diplomat, financier and patron.He was married to Ragnhild Meyer, daughter of Thorvald Meyer; they had one child, Ingeborg...

, a Norwegian businessman and patron of science, who contributed to numerous 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...

 polar expeditions. Amundsen used this glacier as his route up onto the polar plateau on his successful expedition to 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...

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