The name "Cape Amery" was applied to a coastal angle mapped on 11 February 1931 by the British Australian New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) under Douglas Mawson.

He named it for William Bankes Amery, a civil servant who represented the United Kingdom government in Australia (1925–28).

By studying the fossil composition of sediment samples recovered, scientists have inferred that a major retreat of the Amery Ice Shelf to at least 80 km landward of its present location may have occurred during the mid-Holocene climatic optimum (about 5,700 years ago).

However, the head of research stated that it is too early to attribute the cause to global warming as there is the possibility of a natural 50-60 year cycle being responsible.

By May 2021, the iceberg had drifted 46 degrees west to the King Baudouin Ice Shelf, colliding with and destroying the Dog's Head Landing Site, an ice floe used for several years as a landing stage by the Belgian Antarctic Program.