| New Siberian Islands | |
| Map: | Russia |
| Location: | between the Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea |
| Coordinates: | 75.2667°N 160°W |
| Archipelago: | New Siberian Islands |
| Area Km2: | 29900 |
| Highest Mount: | Malakatyn Tas |
| Elevation M: | 374 |
| Country: | Russian Federation |
| Country Admin Divisions Title 1: | Federal subject |
| Country Admin Divisions 1: | Sakha Republic |
| Population: | 250 (2017) on Kotelny Island |
The New Siberian Islands (Russian: Новосиби́рские Oстрова|r=Novosibirskiye Ostrova; Yakut: Саҥа Сибиир Aрыылара|translit=Saŋa Sibiir Arıılara) are an archipelago in the Extreme North of Russia, to the north of the East Siberian coast between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea north of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, of which they are administratively a part.
The first news about the existence of the New Siberian Islands was brought by a Cossack, Yakov Permyakov, in the beginning of the 18th century. In 1712, a Cossack unit led by M. Vagin reached the Great Lyakhovsky Island.
In 1809–10 Yakov Sannikov and Matvei Gedenschtrom went to the New Siberian Islands on a cartographic expedition. Sannikov reported the sighting of a "new land" north of Kotelny in 1811. This became the myth of Zemlya Sannikova or Sannikov Land.[1] In 1886, Russian polar explorer and scientist Eduard Toll, during his first visit to the New Siberian Islands, thought that he had seen an unknown land north of Kotelny Island. He guessed that this was the so-called Zemlya Sannikova.[1]
Toll paid a further visit to the island group in the spring of 1892, accompanied by one Cossack and three natives. He traveled over the ice in sleds drawn by dogs and reached the south coast of Great Lyakhovsky Island.[1] Along the southern coast of this island he found well-preserved bones, ivory, peat, wood, and even a tree within 40m (130feet) high sea cliffs that expose Late Pleistocene sediments. These sediments are cemented by permafrost and have accumulated periodically over the last 200,000 years.[2] [3]
In September 2014, the Russian Navy re-established a Soviet era naval base on Kotelny Island which had lain abandoned since 1993.[4] [5]
The New Siberian Islands proper, or Anzhu Islands (острова Анжу, Sakha: Анжу арыылара), covering a land area of about 29,000 km, consist of:
To the south and nearer to the Siberian mainland lie the Lyakhovskiye Islands (6,095 km):
The small De Long Islands (228 km) lie to the north-east of Novaya Sibir.
The New Siberian Islands are low-lying. Their highest point is located on Bennett island, with an elevation of 426 m. They are part of the East Siberian Lowland, forming a geographical continuum with the continental plains further south.[6]
The New Siberian Islands once formed major hills within the Great Arctic Plain that covered the northern part of Late Pleistocene "Beringia" between Siberia and Alaska during the Last Glacial Maximum (Late Weichselian Epoch). These islands represent the remains of about 1.6 million square kilometers of the formerly subaerial Great Arctic Plain that now lies submerged below parts of the Arctic Ocean, East Siberian Sea, and Laptev Sea. At this plain's greatest extent, sea level was 100–120 m below modern sea-level and the coastline lay 700 to 1000 kilometers north of its current position. This plain did not undergo extensive glaciation during the Late Pleistocene or the Last Glacial Maximum because it lay in the rain shadow of the Northern European ice sheet. During the frigid polar climate of the Last Glacial Maximum, 17,000 to 24,000 BC, small passive ice caps formed on the adjacent De Long Islands. Fragments of these ice caps remain on Jeannette, Henrietta, and Bennett Islands. Traces of former small slope and cirque glaciers in the form of buried ground ice deposits are preserved on Zhokhov Island. The sea submerged the Great Arctic Plain (except for the New Siberian and other isolated islands) within a relatively short time span of 7,000 years during the Early–Middle Holocene.[7] [8] [9]
As noted by Digby[10] and numerous later publications, this archipelago consists of a mixture of folded and faulted sedimentary and igneous rocks ranging in age from Precambrian to Pliocene. The Lyakhovsky Islands consist of a folded and faulted assemblage of Precambrian metamorphic rocks; upper Paleozoic to Triassic sandstones and shales; Jurassic to lower Cretaceous turbidites; Cretaceous granites; and ophiolites. The Anzhu Islands consist of a highly faulted and folded assemblage of Ordovician to Devonian limestones, dolomites, sandstones, shales, volcanoclastic strata, and igneous rocks; upper Paleozoic to Triassic sandstones and shales; Jurassic to lower Cretaceous turbidites; and upper Cretaceous to Pliocene sandstones and shales. The De Long Islands consist of early Paleozoic, middle Paleozoic, Cretaceous, and Neogene sedimentary and igneous (mostly basalt) rocks. These sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks are mantled by loose Pleistocene and Holocene sediments that range in thickness from a fraction of a meter to about 35abbr=offNaNabbr=off.[11] [12]
Digby[10] also noted that some early papers published about the New Siberian Islands incorrectly describe them, often along with other Arctic islands (e.g. Wrangel Island), as being made either up almost entirely of mammoth bones and tusks or of ice, sand, and the bones of mammoths and other extinct megafauna. Some of these papers were written by persons (e.g. D. Gath Whitley)[13] who had never visited the New Siberian Islands and relied upon anecdotes of traders and travelers and local folklore for their descriptions of them, and other articles were written by explorers and ivory hunters untrained in either geology or other sciences. Such statements have been shown to be fictional in nature by detailed studies of the geology of the New Siberian Islands by professional geologists, paleontologists, and other scientists.[12] [14]
As noted by Baron Eduard V. Toll in his account of the New Siberian Islands,[15] sizeable and economically significant accumulations of fossil ivory occur within them. The ivory, along with mammoth and other bones, are found in recent beaches, drainage areas, river terraces and river beds. The New Siberian Islands are unique in the burial and preservation of fossil ivory "in such a wonderful state of preservation that the tusks so found cannot be distinguished from the very best and purest ivory".
The abundant bones, even skeletons, of mammoth, rhinoceros, musk-ox, and other megafauna along with the mammoth ivory found in these islands are preserved by permafrost, in which they are encased.[16] [11] [17] [18] The permafrost periodically developed in Late Pleistocene loess, solifluction, pond, and stream sediments as they accumulated. The radiocarbon dating of bones, ivory, and plants, optically stimulated luminescence dating of enclosing sediments, and uranium-thorium dating of associated peats demonstrate that they accumulated over a period of some 200,000 years. Radiocarbon dates obtained from the collagen of 87 mammoth tusks and bones collected from Faddeevsky, Kotelniy, and New Siberia islands ranged from 9470±40 BP to greater than 50,000 BP (14C).[19]
The entire archipelago has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports breeding populations of many species of birds.[20]
The climate is arctic and severe. Snow cover is present for 9 months of the year.
Permafrost and underground ice are very common. The surface of the islands is covered with Arctic tundra vegetation and numerous lakes.
The ocean surrounding the islands is covered with ice most of the year. During warm years, the ocean briefly opens for navigation July through October. During cold years, islands may remain ice-locked through the summer.
Polar night conditions are present November through February, and, conversely, the Sun remains above the horizon continuously during summer months.