There are many forms of ice in Antarctica. The continent of ice is home to the table-shaped icebergs, a sight only seen in the South Pole. Numerous iceshelves border the continent and make sounds like thunder as it breaks apart and become icebergs in the sea. Icebergs then break into smaller pieces known as sea-ice which flows in clusters in the Antarctic shores. The ice shelves, icebergs and sea-ice all derived from the ice sheet made by snow pushed together to be ice. Glacier: Glaciers are created on high mountains and by hundreds and hundreds of years of packed snow. When the weight is great enough, the top of it surges forwards and starts a downward movement, down the mountain. It carves mountain valleys on its way down. It travels down and down till it reaches the bottom and usually drains out into the sea. Ice shelf: Ice shelves are big slabs of ice coming out from the land that were pushed out from the glaciers to the sea. The surface of the ice shelves are mostly flat and spread out horizontally. They are about 200 to 500 meters thick but only several meters appear above water. The largest ice shelf in Antarctica and in the world is the Ross Ice Shelf. It is about 57 0,000 square km and about the same size as France. The ice of the Ross Ice Shelf which is near the coast moves about 250 meters every year. As it near the tip, the ice moves faster, about 1240 meters every year and eventually breaks apart into icebergs. Ronne, Filchner, and Amery ice shelves are also one of the largest ice shelves found in Antarctica. Iceberg: Numerous icebergs afloat on the surrounding waters of Antarctica. The special thing about Antarctic iceberg is that it is table-shaped because it breaks apart from the flat-surfaced ice shelves. It is about 180 km long and exists 12 to 14 years. 20 to 40 meters appear above water, but 150 to 300 meters are hidden under water. The icebergs are made of fresh water and without any salt unlike the ocean. Since the icebergs are so big and hard to melt, scientists once planned pulling it with a ship to the deserts. By sprinkling pieces of the iceberg of Antarctica, the iceberg could be a savior of the dryness of the desert and help plants to grow there. From satellites and aerial pictures over 200,000 icebergs are found afloat in the Antarctic Sea. Sea-ice: Any pieces of ice that break off into the sea are called sea-ice. In the summer, about 3.5 million square km of sea-ice are found in the sea. In winter the area expands to about 20 million square km. Sea-ice acts as a block to keep the sun's heat away from the water, which is why the waters of the Antarctic are the coldest in the world. Drilling Ice Cores The ice found in Antarctica is known as the "Time Capsule" of the Earth. Substances that originated from forests, desert, volcanoes, and oceans are found here and frozen within the thick sheets of ice. Dusts from space are also found, too. The snow never melts and air is also captured in the ice. Data from the past several hundred thousand years is all kept inside the ice. Scientist started to drill out the ice in long cylinder shapes to analyze the data within the ice about 30 years ago. In 1968, the US's Byrd Station had drilled down to 2,164 meters under ice and reached the rock grounds. Recently, in the December of 1996, Japan's Dome Fuji Station, standing at 3.810 meters above water, drilled down to the depth of 2503.52 meters deep. The ice samples contained 25 layers of past volcanic rocks and dusts and also had facts of the past Ice Ages and their cycle.