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Blue Glacier (Antarctica)

glacier in Antarctica

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ3761656
Source-derived summary

Blue Glacier (77°50′S 164°10′E) is a large glacier which flows into Bowers Piedmont Glacier about 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi) south of New Harbour, in Victoria Land, Antarctica. It was discovered by the British National Antarctic Expedition (BrNAE) under Robert Falcon Scott, 1901–04, who gave it this name because of its clear blue ice at the time of discovery.

Location

Blue Glacier rises to the north of Armitage Saddle, and flows north.

The coastal range that borders the lower Koettlitz Glacier and the McMurdo Ice Shelf lies to the east, and the Royal Society Range is to the west.

In its lower section the Blue Glacier turns to the east and joins the Bowers Piedmont Glacier on the west coast of the McMurdo Sound.

Left tributary glaciers

Glaciers entering from the left (west) flowing from the Royal Society Range, include (from south to north) Salient, Hooker, Mitchell, Spring, Covert, Amos Glacier and Geoid Glacier.

Salient Glacier

78°06′S 163°05′E.

A glacier draining northeast into the head of the Blue Glacier from the slopes of Salient Peak.

Surveyed in 1957 by the New Zealand Blue Glacier Party of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE, 1956-58).

Named after Salient Peak.

Bowden Glacier

78.1333333°S 163.1166667°E / -78.1333333; 163.1166667.

Editorial summary

“Blue Glacier (Antarctica)” enters the record as glacier in Antarctica. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Blue, Glacier and Antarctica can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1901, 1957, 1956—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Blue, Glacier and Antarctica.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Blue Glacier (Antarctica)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Blue, Glacier and Antarctica provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3761656. Authority coordinates are -77.833, 164.167. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901, 1957 and 1956.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Blue Glacier (Antarctica)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.