Geography
The New Siberian Islands proper, or Anzhu Islands, covering a land area of about 29,000 km², consist of:
- Kotelny Island (о. Коте́льный) 11,700 km² and
- Faddeyevsky Island (о. Фадде́евский) 5,300 km²
- Both linked by Bunge Land (земля́ Бу́нге) 6,200 km² (occasionally submerged by sea). Very close to Bunge Land's northwestern coast there are two islands: Zheleznyakov Island (Ostrov Zheleznyakova), right off the NW cape and, east of it, Matar Island (Ostrov Matar). Both islands are about 5 km in length.
- Nanosnyy Island 76°16′59″N 140°24′58″E / 76.283°N 140.416°E / 76.283; 140.416 is a small island located due north off the northern bay formed by Kotelny and Bunge. It is C-shaped and only 4 km in length, but its importance lies in the fact that it is the northernmost island of the New Siberian group.
- Novaya Sibir (о. Но́вая Сиби́рь) 6,200 km²
- Belkovsky Island (о. Бельковский) 500 km²
To the south and nearer to the Siberian mainland lie the Lyakhovskiye Islands (6,095 km²):
- Great Lyakhovsky Island (о. Большо́й Ля́ховский) 4,600 km²
- Little Lyakhovsky Island (о. Ма́лый Ля́ховский) 1,325 km²
- Stolbovoy Island (о. Столбово́й) 170 km²
- Semyonovsky Island (о. Семёновский) 0 km² (now submerged)
The small De Long Islands (228 km²) lie to the north-east of Novaya Sibir. These islands are usually not considered as part of the New Siberian group:
- Jeannette Island (о. Жанне́тты)
- Henrietta Island (о. Генрие́тты)
- Bennett Island (о. Бе́ннетта)
- Vilkitsky Island (о. Вильки́цкого)
- Zhokhov Island (о. Жо́хова)
The New Siberian Islands are low-lying. Their highest point is Mt. Malakatyn-Tas on Kotelny island with an elevation of 374 m.
The New Siberian Islands were once major hills within the Great Arctic Plain that once formed northern part of Late Pleistocene "Beringia" between Siberia and Alaska during the Last Glacial Maximum (Late Weichselian Epoch). These islands are what 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 was located 700-1000 kilometers north of its current position. This plain was neither extensively glaciated during the Late Pleistocene nor 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 BP, small passive ice caps formed on the adjacent De Long Islands. Fragments of these ice caps are preserved 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 Great Arctic Plain was submerged, except for the New Siberian and other isolated islands, within a relatively short time span of 7,000 years during the Early-Middle Holocene.
Read more about this topic: New Siberian Islands
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