Thurston Island is an ice-covered, glacially dissected island, 215 km (134 mi) long, 90 km (56 mi) wide and 15700 km² (6,062 sq mi) in area, lying a short way off the NW end of Ellsworth Land

Ellsworth Land

Ellsworth Land is that portion of the Antarctic continent bounded on the west by Marie Byrd Land, on the north by Bellingshausen Sea, on the northeast by the base of Antarctic Peninsula, and on the east by the western margin of Ronne Ice Shelf. It extends between 103°24'W and 79°45'W...

, Antarctica. It is the third largest island of Antarctica, after Alexander Island

Alexander Island

Alexander Island or Alexander I Island or Alexander I Land or Alexander Land is the largest island of Antarctica, with an area of lying in the Bellingshausen Sea west of the base of the Antarctic Peninsula, from which it is separated by Marguerite Bay and George VI Sound. Alexander Island lies off...

 and Berkner Island

Berkner Island

Berkner Island or Berkner Ice Rise or Hubley Island is a high and completely ice-covered large island about long and wide in Antarctica, with an area of . It is the second largest island of both Antarctica and the British Antarctic Territory, after Alexander Island. It is also located within the...

. The island is separated from the mainland by Peacock Sound

Peacock Sound

Peacock Sound is an ice-filled sound, long and wide, separating Thurston Island from the Eights Coast of Ellsworth Land in Antarctica. The sound is occupied by the western part of the Abbot Ice Shelf, and is therefore not navigable by ships....

, which is occupied by the western portion of Abbot Ice Shelf

Abbot Ice Shelf

The Abbot Ice Shelf is an ice shelf long and wide, bordering Eights Coast from Cape Waite to Phrogner Point in Antarctica. Thurston Island lies along the northern edge of the western half of this ice shelf; other sizable islands lie partly or wholly within this shelf.The ice shelf was sighted by...

.

The island was discovered from the air by Rear Admiral Byrd on February 27, 1940, who named it for W. Harris Thurston, New York textile manufacturer, designer of the windproof "Byrd Cloth" and sponsor of Antarctic expeditions.

Originally charted as a peninsula

Peninsula

A peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....

, the feature was not recognised an island until 1960.

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