Bay of Whales

History

During his quest for the South Pole, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen established a temporary base, which he named Framheim, at the Bay of Whales. The base was used between January 1911 – February 1912, and was named after Amundsen's ship Fram.

The Bay of Whales was a logistical support base for Richard E. Byrd's first (1928–1930), second (1933–1935) and third expedition (1939–1941)

The configuration of the Bay of Whales continuously changed. A survey by the second Byrd expedition in 1934 determined that the feature lay at the junction of two separate ice systems, the movements of which are influenced by the presence of Roosevelt Island. Commander Glen Jacobsen, USN, who visited aboard the USS Atka in January 1955, found that calving of the ice shelf rendered the iceport temporarily unusable.

The Bay of Whales was entirely eliminated in 1987 when the 154-kilometre-long (83 nmi) Iceberg B-9 broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf.

The Whale Bay Furrows, a series of undersea valleys on the central Ross continental shelf, were named in association with the Bay of Whales.