The Ross Ice Shelf is a floating sheet of ice about the size of France. It ranges in thickness from 200 m to approximately 1 000 m. The Ross Ice Shelf Project (RISP) seeks to shed more light on the ice shelf's relationship to the west Antarctic ice sheet and on the possibility that significant fluctuations in thickness and extent have taken place during recent history. The project also aims to learn more about the unique ecological system in the unexplored waters under the ice shelf and in the sediments which floor the Ross Sca embayment.