Lazarev Bay is a rectangular bay

Headlands and bays

Headlands and bays are two related features of the coastal environment.- Geology and geography :Headlands and bays are often found on the same coastline. A bay is surrounded by land on three sides, whereas a headland is surrounded by water on three sides. Headlands are characterized by high,...

, 15 nautical miles (28 km) long and 13 nautical miles (24 km) wide, between Alexander Island

Alexander Island

Alexander Island or Alexander I Island or Alexander I Land or Alexander Land is the largest island of Antarctica, with an area of lying in the Bellingshausen Sea west of the base of the Antarctic Peninsula, from which it is separated by Marguerite Bay and George VI Sound. Alexander Island lies off...

 and Rothschild Island

Rothschild Island

Rothschild Island is an island long, mainly ice covered but surmounted by prominent peaks of Desko Mountains, west of the north part of Alexander Island in the north entrance to Wilkins Sound....

 and bounded on the south by ice shelf

Ice shelf

An ice shelf is a thick, floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a coastline and onto the ocean surface. Ice shelves are only found in Antarctica, Greenland and Canada. The boundary between the floating ice shelf and the grounded ice that feeds it is called...

 joining the two islands. The north coast of Alexander Island was first seen from a great distance by the Russian expedition of 1821 under Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen

Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen

Fabian Gottlieb Thaddeus von Bellingshausen was an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy, cartographer and explorer, who ultimately rose to the rank of Admiral...

. The bay was first mapped from air photos taken by the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition

Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition

The Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition was an expedition from 1947-1948 which researched the area surrounding the head of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica.-Background:...

 (RARE), 1947–48, by Searle of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) in 1960. Named by the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) for Lieutenant Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev

Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev

Admiral Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev was a Russian fleet commander and explorer who discovered Antarctica.-Education and early career:Lazarev was born in Vladimir, a scion of the old Russian nobility from the Vladimir province. In 1800, he enrolled in Russia's Naval College. Three years later he...

 (1788–1851), second-in-command of the Russian expedition and commander of the sloop

Sloop

A sloop is a sail boat with a fore-and-aft rig and a single mast farther forward than the mast of a cutter....

Mirnyy.