query: located_on_terrain_feature south shetland islands
supports: The Drake Passage or Mar de HocesSea of Hocesis the body of water between South America's Cape Horn and the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica. It connects the southwestern part of the Atlantic Ocean (Scotia Sea) with the southeastern part of the Pacific Ocean and extends into the Southern Ocean. Antarctica (US English , UK English or ) is Earth's southernmost continent. It contains the geographic South Pole and is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At , it is the fifth-largest continent. For comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages in thickness, which extends to all but the northernmost reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula. The Antarctic Peninsula is the northernmost part of the mainland of Antarctica, located at the base of the Southern Hemisphere. At the surface, it is the biggest, most prominent peninsula in Antarctica as it extends from a line between Cape Adams (Weddell Sea) and a point on the mainland south of Eklund Islands. Beneath the ice sheet which covers it, the Antarctic Peninsula consists of a string of bedrock islands; these are separated by deep channels whose bottoms lie at depths considerably below current sea level. They are joined together by a grounded ice sheet. Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America, lies only about away across the Drake Passage. In geology, bedrock is the lithified rock that lies under the loose softer material (regolith) at the surface of the Earth or other terrestrial planet. The broken and weathered regolith includes soil and subsoil. The surface of the bedrock beneath soil cover is known as rockhead in engineering geology and its identification by digging, drilling or geophysical methods is an important task in most civil engineering projects. Superficial deposits (also known as drift) can be extremely thick, such that the bedrock lies hundreds of meters below the surface. Cape Adams is an abrupt rock scarp marking the south tip of Bowman Peninsula and forming the north side of the entrance to Gardner Inlet, on the east coast of Palmer Land in Antarctica. It was discovered by the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE), 194748, under Ronne, and named by him for Lt. Charles J. Adams of the then USAAF, pilot with the expedition. South America is a continent located in the western hemisphere, mostly in the southern hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the northern hemisphere. It is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas, which is the model used in nations that speak Romance languages. The reference to South America instead of other regions (like Latin America or the Southern Cone) has increased in the last decades due to changing geopolitical dynamics (in particular, the rise of Brazil). Tierra del Fuego (; Spanish for "Land of Fire") is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, with an area of , and a group of many islands, including Cape Horn and Diego Ramírez Islands. Tierra del Fuego is divided between Chile and Argentina, with the latter controlling the eastern half of the main island and the former the western half plus the islands south of Beagle Channel. The southernmost extent of the archipelago is at about latitude 55 S. The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha Coast, Queen Maud Land. To the east of Cape Norvegia is the King Haakon VII Sea. Much of the southern part of the sea is covered by a permanent, massive ice shelf field, the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf (not pack ice). The sea is contained within the two overlapping Antarctic territorial claims of Argentina, (Argentine Antarctica) and Britain (British Antarctic Territory), and also resides partially within the territorial claim of Chile (Antarctic Chilean Territory). At its widest the sea is around across, and its area is around .
  Various ice shelves, including the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, fringe the Weddell sea. Some of the ice shelves on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula, which formerly covered roughly of the Weddell Sea, had completely disappeared by 2002; see "Antarctica" at Retreat of glaciers since 1850. Whilst a dramatic event, the area that disappeared was far smaller than the total area of ice shelf that remains. The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands , lying about 120 kilometres ( 75 mi ) north of the Antarctic Peninsula , with a total area of 3,687 square kilometres ( 1,424 sq mi ) . By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 , the islands ' sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories and they are free for use by any signatory for non-military purposes . The islands have been claimed by the United Kingdom since 1908 and to be part of the British Antarctic Territory since 1962 . They are also claimed by the governments of Chile ( since 1940 , as part of the Antártica Chilena province ) and by Argentina ( since 1943 , as part of Argentine Antarctica , Tierra del Fuego Province ) . Several countries maintain research stations on the islands . Most of them are situated on King George Island , benefitting from the airfield of the Chilean base Eduardo Frei . There are sixteen research stations to date in different parts of the islands , with Chilean stations being the greatest in number . Research is often a shared duty of nations , with the Chilean - United States Shirreff Base being one example . An ice sheet is a mass of glacier ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than , thus also known as continental glacier. The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the last glacial period at Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the Laurentide ice sheet covered much of North America, the Weichselian ice sheet covered northern Europe and the Patagonian Ice Sheet covered southern South America. The Eklund Islands are a group of islands which rise through the ice near the southwest end of George VI Sound towards the south of the Antarctic Peninsula.
candidates: antarctic peninsula antarctica atlantic ocean coast coats land earth mainland northern hemisphere pacific ocean palmer land princess martha coast shetland south america south shetland islands southern ocean weddell sea
answer: southern ocean