ce 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, typically in Antarctica or Greenland.
See also:
Earth & Climate

* Global Warming
* Ice Ages
* Oceanography

Matter & Energy

* Nature of Water

The boundary between floating ice shelf and the grounded (resting on bedrock) ice that feeds it is called the grounding line.

When the grounding line retreats inland, water is added to the ocean and sea level rises..

For more information about the topic Ice shelf, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:
Antarctic ice sheet — The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest single mass of ice on Earth. It covers an area of almost 14 million square km and contains 30 million cubic km ... > read more
Larsen Ice Shelf — The Larsen Ice Shelf is a long, fringing ice shelf in the northwest part of the Weddell Sea, extending along the east coast of Antarctic Peninsula ... > read more
Ice sheet — An Ice sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 square kilometers (19,305 square miles). The only ... > read more
Iceberg — An iceberg is a large piece of ice that has broken off from a snow-formed glacier or ice shelf and is floating in open water. Since the density of .