East Antarctica represents a continent which has sunk under the weight of its ice cover and is approximately balanced eustatically. Ice covers about 96 pct of Antarctica; nearly 90 pct of the area is occupied by the continental ice sheet resting on rock, and the rest by the intermittent peripheral fringe of floating ice shelves. Ice shelves connected with the continental ice sheet and extending within shelf seas up to several kilometers northward make up almost 40 pct of the coast line. Land areas free from the ice sheet are characterized by a developed system of small mountain and piled-up glaciers, and an insignificant amount of subsurface ice.