Cosgrove Ice Shelf is a 35 miles (56.3 km) long by 25 miles (40.2 km) wide ice shelf

Ice shelf

An ice shelf is a thick, floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface. Ice shelves are only found in Antarctica, Greenland and Canada. The boundary between the floating ice shelf and the grounded ice that feeds it is called...

, occupying the inner (east) part of the embayment between King Peninsula

King Peninsula

King Peninsula is an ice-covered peninsula, 100 miles long and 20 miles wide, lying south of Thurston Island and forming the south side of Peacock Sound. It projects from the continental ice sheet and trends west between the Abbot Ice Shelf and Cosgrove Ice Shelf to terminate at Amundsen Sea...

 and Canisteo Peninsula

Canisteo Peninsula

Canisteo Peninsula is an ice-covered peninsula, about long and wide, which projects between Ferrero Bay and Cranton Bay into the eastern extremity of the Amundsen Sea. It was delineated from air photos taken by U.S...

, Antarctica. It was mapped from air photos taken by U.S. Navy Operation Highjump

Operation Highjump

Operation Highjump , officially titled The United States Navy Antarctic Developments Program, 1946-1947, was a United States Navy operation organized by RADM Richard E. Byrd Jr. USN, , Officer in Charge, Task Force 68, and led by RADM Richard H. Cruzen, USN, Commanding Officer, Task Force 68....

, 1946–47, and named by the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names for Lieutenant Jerome R. Cosgrove, U.S. Navy Reserve, assistant communications officer on the staff of the Commander, U.S. Navy Support Force, Antarctica, during U.S. Navy Operation Deep Freeze

Operation Deep Freeze

Operation Deep Freeze is the codename 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...

, 1967 and 1968.