Grant Island is an ice

Ice

Ice is water frozen into the solid state. Usually ice is the phase known as ice Ih, which is the most abundant of the varying solid phases on the Earth's surface. It can appear transparent or opaque bluish-white color, depending on the presence of impurities or air inclusions...

-covered island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

, 20 miles (32.2 km) long and 10 miles (16.1 km) wide, lying 5 miles (8 km) east of the smaller Shepard Island

Shepard Island

Shepard Island or John Shepard Island is an island about long, lying west of Grant Island off the coast of Marie Byrd Land. Shepard Island is located at . Shepard Island is ice capped except at its northern, seaward side, and is almost wholly embedded in the Getz Ice Shelf...

 off the coast of Marie Byrd Land

Marie Byrd Land

Marie Byrd Land is the portion of West Antarctica lying east of the Ross Ice Shelf and the Ross Sea and south of the Pacific Ocean, extending eastward approximately to a line between the head of the Ross Ice Shelf and Eights Coast. It stretches between 158°W and 103°24'W...

. Grant Island is located at 74°28′S 131°35′W. Like Shepard Island

Shepard Island

Shepard Island or John Shepard Island is an island about long, lying west of Grant Island off the coast of Marie Byrd Land. Shepard Island is located at . Shepard Island is ice capped except at its northern, seaward side, and is almost wholly embedded in the Getz Ice Shelf...

, Grant Island is surrounded by the Getz Ice Shelf

Getz Ice Shelf

Getz Ice Shelf is an Antarctic ice shelf, over 480 km long and from 32 to 96 km wide, bordering the Hobbs and Bakutis Coasts of Marie Byrd Land between McDonald Heights and Martin Peninsula. Several large islands are partially or wholly embedded in the ice shelf.The ice shelf westward of Siple...

 on all but the north side. Grant Island was discovered and charted by personnel on the USS Glacier

USS Glacier (AGB-4)

USS Glacier is the historic Glacier class icebreaker which served in the first through fifteenth Operation Deep Freeze expeditions. Glacier was first icebreaker to make her way through the frozen Bellingshausen Sea, and most of the topography in the area is named for her crewmembers...

 on February 4, 1962. Grant Island was named by the United States Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (US-ACAN) for Commander

Commander

Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...

 E. G. Grant, Commanding Officer

Commanding officer

The commanding officer is the officer in command of a military unit. Typically, the commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitude to run the unit as he sees fit, within the bounds of military law...

 of the USS Glacier at the time of discovery.

See also

• Composite Antarctic Gazetteer
• List of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands
• List of Antarctic islands south of 60° S
• SCAR
  Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research
  The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research is an interdisciplinary body of the International Council for Science . It was established in February 1958 to continue the international coordination of Antarctic scientific activities that had begun during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58...
  
  
• Territorial claims in Antarctica