L089 Wilkes ice thickness measurements, Antarctica, 1961

Ice thickness measurements were made in 1961 by seismic methods on a line southward from S-2, a glaciological station 50 miles east-south-east of Wilkes Base, Antarctica. The traverse constituted the first year's work of a three-year programme. The results showed that the rock underlying the ice dips below sea level at a point between 20 and 40 miles south of S-2. It remains below sea level at all the locations occupied to the south, as far as 280 miles south of S-2, where the rock surface is again above sea level. The main feature is a valley disclosed in the rock formation between 40 and 80 miles south of S-2. Midway between these two points the rock lies at approximately 7500 ft below sea level. The positions of the Totten Glacier and the John Quincy Adams Glacier suggest that the valley may have been responsible for their formation.