Thorough explorations include the expeditions of Federico Reichert (1913-1914), Alberto de Agostini (1931), and Harold William Tilman and Jorge Quinteros (1955-1956); as well as Eric Shipton (1960-61). First full (North-South) crossing of the field was accomplished in 1998 by Pablo Besser, Mauricio Rojas, José Montt and Rodrigo Fica. Nevertheless some areas of the field remain largely unexplored

From the air, initial exploration was conducted in 1928-9 by Gunther Plüschow after whom a glacier is named. It was further studied in 1943 by aerial photographs made by the United States Air Force on request of the Chilean government.