Cook Ice Cap


The Cook Ice Cap or Cook Glacier is a large ice cap in the Kerguelen Islands in the French Southern Territories zone of the far Southern Indian Ocean.

Geography

The Cook Ice Cap reaches a maximum elevation of in its central area. It had a surface of approximately in 1963, having shrunk to about in recent times.
Named after British explorer James Cook, on French navigational charts of the early 20th century this ice cap appears as 'Glacier Richthofen'

Glaciers

About sixty glaciers flow from the inner ice cap in a roughly radial pattern. At the feet of the snout of these outlet glaciers there are often terminal moraines with dammed lakes of varying sizes. Further down the glacial meltwaters have formed numerous outwash plains at certain, mostly inland, locations. Only one of the glaciers originating in the Cook Ice Cap has its terminus in the Indian Ocean at the Anse des Glaçons in southeastern Kerguelen's deeply indented coastline.
The following are the main glaciers listed clockwise: