Home > Facts > Seas Facts > Amundsen Sea Facts

Amundsen Sea Facts

Amundsen Sea Facts
The Amundsen Sea is located off western Antarctica, and is considered to be an arm of the Southern Ocean. To its west is Cape Dart and to its east is Cape Flying Fish. It was named after Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian polar explorer, in 1929. The Amundsen Sea is covered mostly in ice. An ice sheet drains into the Amundsen Sea.
Interesting Amundsen Sea Facts:
The ice sheet that drains into the Amundsen Sea is called the Thwaites Ice Tongue. It is approximately 1.9 miles thick. It is about the same size as Texas.
The area that the ice sheet drains into is called the Amundsen Sea Embayment.
The ice discharge into the Amundsen Sea Embayment was estimated in 2005 to be at about 250km3 per year. If this remains steady it will raise global sea levels by 0.2mm each year.
The Amundsen Sea Embayment is one of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet's three main ice drainage basins.
An expedition to the Amundsen Sea in 2008 led to the discovery of over 30 unclassified marine species of life.
Some of the basins and troughs in the Amundsen Sea reach as far as 1,600 meters.
One of the newly discovered species was feeding on a dead octopus beak. It is referred to as a bathysciadiid limpet.
Species that can be found in the Amundsen Sea incluse sea cucumbers, sea urchins, and starfish, which are echinoderms.
During the 2008 expedition 275 species were brought up from the Amundsen Sea depths, in almost 5500 specimens.


Related Links:
Facts
Seas Facts
Animals Facts