This glacier was named by the Denmark expedition 1906–08 after Georg Hugh Robert Zachariæ (1850–1937), an officer of the Danish Navy.

Zachariae Isstrøm has its terminus in the northern part of Jøkel Bay, south of Lambert Land and north of Nørreland, near the Achton Friis Islands.

[4] It terminates into an embayment previously packed with multi-year calf ice.

[5] Zachariæ Isstrøm broke loose from a stable position in 2012 and entered a phase of accelerated retreat as predicted in 2008.

In 2012 it detached from a stabilizing sill and retreated rapidly along a downward-sloping, marine-based bed[3] with substantial calving.