Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2013L01343:reg:16:p43
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2013L01343
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 16 (pt 43/51)
Character Range: 320959–323612

Commonwealth Bay, a 60 km-wide stretch of coast in George V Land some 3,000 km south of Hobart, Australia. The Cape itself is a rugged, 1.5 km-wide tongue of ice, snow, rock and moraine projecting into Commonwealth Bay from the steeply rising wall of the ice cap of continental Antarctica. On the western side of the Cape is Boat Harbour, a 400m-long indentation in the coast.
The designated ASMA (Map A) extends from Land's End (67° 00' 46" S, 142° 39' 24" E) in the west, along the coastline to the northern tip of the western shore of Boat Harbour (67° 00' 24" S, 142° 39' 28" E), across the mouth of Boat Harbour (in a straight north-easterly diagonal) to the northern tip of Penguin Knob (67° 00' 17" S, 142° 39' 31" E) on the eastern shore of Boat Harbour, and then along the coastline in a south-easterly direction down to John O'Groats (67° 00' 47" S, 142° 41' 27" E). The southern boundary extends in a straight line from Land's End to John O'Groats along latitude 67° 00' 47" S. With the exception of the boundary across the mouth of Boat Harbour, the northern coastal boundary extends to that land above the lowest tide.
The shoreline and the ice cliffs at both ends of the Cape (Land's End and John O'Groats) form a clearly defined boundary; as such, no boundary markers have been installed because the coast is a clearly defined boundary.

Natural features: Topography and geomorphology
The topography of Cape Denison is defined by a series of four rocky ridges, running south- southeast to north-northwest, and three valleys. The largest, most westerly of these valleys contains the AAE buildings, which are protected within ASPA No. 162. The basement rock of the Cape Denison area consists of partially migmatised, massive felsic orthogneiss intruded about 2350 million years ago (Ma) into an older metamorphosed sequence. Above the basement the area features a lower zone of relatively polished rock and a higher zone of relatively unpolished rock; the former being especially prominent below 12 metres above sea level and indicative of more recent uplift and exposure than the upper zone. An upper and lower moraine are apparent, with the upper moraine, closer to the edge of plateau, containing a diversity of angular boulders. The lower moraine is dominated by local rocks sorted into bands, perhaps the result of an 'ice push' from the sea rather than being genuine glacial moraine.

Water bodies
Cape Denison contains 13 small glacial lakes, which are generally oriented parallel to the foliation of the basement rocks. At the height of summer Cape Denison also features numerous melt streams which flow into Commonwealth Bay. It is