Ernest Shackleton in the context of "Statute mile"

The Caird Coast is the portion of the coast of Coats Land lying between the terminus of Stancomb-Wills Glacier, in 20º00´W, and the vicinity of the Hayes Glacier, in 27º54´W. Shackleton named it for Sir James Key Caird, patron of the expedition.

As part of the ill-fated British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Ernest Shackleton continued the exploration southward, joining Bruce's discovery to land which Wilhelm Filchner had discovered from the Deutschland in 1912.

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1911, this crossing remained, in Shackleton's words, the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings". Shackleton's expedition failed to accomplish this objective but became recognised instead as an epic feat of endurance.

Shackleton had served in the Antarctic on the Discovery expedition of 1901–1904 and had led the Nimrod expedition of 1907–1909. In this new venture, he proposed to sail to the Weddell Sea and to land a shore party near Vahsel Bay, in preparation for a transcontinental march via the South Pole to the Ross Sea. A supporting group, the Ross Sea party, would meanwhile establish camp in McMurdo Sound and from there lay a series of supply depots across the Ross Ice Shelf to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. These depots would be essential for the transcontinental party's survival, as the group would not be able to carry enough provisions for the entire crossing. The expedition required two ships: Endurance under Shackleton for the Weddell Sea party, and Aurora, under Aeneas Mackintosh, for the Ross Sea party.

Sir James Key Caird, 1st Baronet (7 January 1837 – 9 March 1916) was a Scottish jute baron and mathematician. He was one of Dundee's most successful entrepreneurs, who used the latest technology in his Ashton and Craigie Mills.

Caird was noted for his interest in providing financial aid for scientific research. He was one of the sponsors of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated Antarctic expedition of 1914 to 1916. The ship's boat, the James Caird, in which six of Shackleton's expedition made an epic voyage of 700 nautical miles (1,300 km) from Elephant Island to South Georgia, was named in appreciation of Caird's contribution.

The Shackleton fracture zone (SFZ) is an undersea fracture zone, oceanic ridge and fault located in the Drake Passage, at the separation between the Scotia plate from the Antarctic plate. It extends between 59° and 60°40' south latitude and between 56°30' and 61° west longitude and runs in a northwest to southeast direction from the South American continental shelf to the South Shetland Islands.Chile claims the area as part of its Outer Continental Shelf boundary.

The name, recognized by the Advisory Committee on Underwater Features (ACUF) since June 1987, is named after the British polar explorer Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922).