Patagonian Shelf Patagonian Shelf The Patagonian or Argentine Shelf is part of the South American continental shelf belonging to the Argentine Sea on the Atlantic seaboard, south of about 35°S. It adjoins the coasts of Uruguay, Argentina and the Falkland Islands. Various authorities quote different dimensions of the shelf, depending on how they define its limits. Quoted statistics cites its area as being from 1.2 to 2.7 million square kilometres and its maximum width as being between 760 and 850 kilometres. The shelf itself can be divided into a 100 km band where the seabed slopes at about then a wide plain
Patagonian Ice Sheet than the extremely steep ones of present-day Patagonia. Unlike the Laurentide Ice Sheet or the ice sheets of Northern Europe, the Patagonian Ice Sheet did not cause major extinctions or loss of biodiversity. This is because the flora remaining to the north of the ice were isolated by the Atacama Desert and were able to speciate easily wherever suitable microclimates occurred. In fact, most of the original Antarctic flora survives today on land occupied by the ice sheet. However, there are indications that during the last deglaciation (17,500 years ago), the rapid melting of the northernmost extension of the Patagonian