The Robert H. Thomas Papers contain Thomas's research on marine ice sheet instability and related glaciological topics. The collection includes correspondence between Thomas and others regarding his research, collaborative projects, and his career; project proposals; resumes; and drafts and published copies of papers written by Thomas, or directly related to his research. Research, surveys, and information collected by Thomas during his work in the field throughout his career is also included, and consists of field notebooks, reports, charts, graphs, maps, data summaries, color photographs of field research trips at unknown locations conducted by NASA between 1989-1992, and aerial photographs of the Ross Ice Shelf in 1969. The collection also contains USB flash drives with digital image files, PowerPoint presentations, Thomas's obituary, and publications written by Thomas. The collection materials are dated 1968-2010.

"Photographs of Antarctica, Presented to G. M. Schwartz for the Department of Geology, University of Minnesota, Through the Courtesy of Professor Lawrence [Laurence] Gould, Second In Command of the Expedition" includes black and white photographic prints glued to album pages. The images depict ice and geological features of the Ross Ice Shelf, Liv Glacier, and the Bay of Whales in Antarctica, and were taken by Laurence M. Gould during the first Byrd Antarctic Expedition (1928-1930). Most of the images were taken from a plane, and include captions that identify the location the photograph was taken, as well as images that were used by Gould in publications about the expedition, particularly in "The Ross Shelf Ice" article published in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America in 1935. The album was compiled circa 1935-1961.

The pages were originally held in a three-ring photograph album in numerical order, as indicated by the creator's handwritten numbers in the corners; the pages were removed from the album and placed in a folder for preservation purposes. There are no pages 8-9, and the last three pages of the album are not numbered; the final page of the album has an "x" written in place of a number.