Encyclopedia of Seas This Encyclopedia of Seas series is designed to accumulate and systematize our knowledge about the unique natural water areas – the Aral, Caspian, Black, , Far-Eastern, and Baltic seas – their wealth, the events that took place on its waters and shores, and the remarkable people whose lives were and are closely intertwined with the seas. The Encyclopedia series contains thousands of terms and concepts related to the seas. It describes geographical features: rivers, lakes, straits, and bays; provides information about towns, seaports, transport communications, basic aquatic biological species, nature reserves, national and international programs for the study of the sea, research institutes, historical monuments, activities of prominent explorers and travelers, researchers, and scientists. Each Encyclopedia includes a chronology of major historical events connected with these seas for several centuries.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14357 Igor S. Zonn • Andrey G. Kostianoy Aleksandr V. Semenov

The Eastern Arctic Seas Encyclopedia

With 200 Figures Igor S. Zonn Andrey G. Kostianoy Engineering Research Production P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology Center For Water Management Russian Academy of Sciences Land Reclamation and Ecology Moscow, Russia Moscow, Russia

Aleksandr V. Semenov S.Yu. Witte Moscow University Moscow, Russia

ISBN 978-3-319-24236-1 ISBN 978-3-319-24237-8 (eBook) ISBN 978-3-319-24238-5 (print and electronic bundle) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-24237-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016953630

# Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

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This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is : Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Acknowledgment

We would like to thank the editors at Springer-Verlag for their timely interest in the Arctic seas and their support of the present publication. We would like to thank Springer-Verlag for the steady interest toward the , which resulted in a significant list of book publications (in chronological order since 2010 only):

Ferguson SH, Loseto LL, Mallory ML, editors. A little less Arctic. Top predators in the world’s largest Northern Inland Sea, Hudson Bay. 2010. Johannessen OM, Volkov VA, Pettersson LH, Drange H, Gao Y, Maderich VS, Neelov IA, Nielsen SP, Bobylev LP, Stepanov AV,Zheleznyak MJ, Tishkov V. Radioactivity and pollution in the Nordic seas and Arctic. Obs. Model. Simul. 2010. Hovelsrud GK, Smit B, editors. Community adaptation and vulnerability in Arctic regions. 2010. Barr S, Lüdecke C, editors. The history of the International Polar Years (IPYs). 2010. Gutman G, Reissell A, editors. Eurasian Arctic land cover and land use in a changing climate. 2011. Wasum-Rainer S, Winkelmann I, Tiroch K, editors. Arctic science, interna- tional law and climate change. Legal aspects of marine science in the Arctic Ocean. 2012. Marchenko N. Russian Arctic seas. Navigational conditions and accidents. 2012. Lemke P, Jacobi H-W, editors. Arctic climate change. The ACSYS decade and beyond. 2012. Østreng W, Eger KM, Fløistad B, Jørgensen-Dahl A, Lothe L, Mejlaender- Larsen M, Wergeland T. Shipping in Arctic waters. A comparison of the northeast, northwest and trans polar passages. 2013. Berkman PA, Vylegzhanin AN, editors. Environmental security in the Arctic Ocean. 2013. Max MD, Johnson AH, Dillon WP. Natural gas hydrate – Arctic Ocean deepwater resource potential. 2013. Rösel A. Detection of melt ponds on Arctic sea ice with optical satellite data. 2013.

v vi Acknowledgment

Weiss J. Drift, deformation, and fracture of sea ice. A perspective across scales. 2013. Müller DK, Lundmark L, Lemelin RH, editors. New issues in polar tourism. Commun. Environ. Polit. 2013. Tedsen E, Cavalieri S, Kraemer RA, editors. Arctic marine governance. Opportunities for transatlantic cooperation. 2014. Grebmeier JM, Maslowski W, editors. The Pacific Arctic region. Ecosystem status and trends in a rapidly changing environment. 2014. Weidemann L. International governance of the Arctic marine environment. With particular emphasis on high seas fisheries. 2014. Evengård B, Nymand Larsen J, Paasche Ø, editors. The new Arctic. 2015. Kroner U. The geology of the Arctic. 2015. Keupp MM, editor. The . A military and business analysis. 2015. Kallenborn R, editor. Long-range transport of man-made Contamination into the Arctic and . 2016.

We are very grateful to Academician Gennadiy G. Matishov, the Chair of the Southern Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of the Murmansk Marine Biological Institute RAS, and to Sergey L. Dzhenyuk, Senior scientist at the Murmansk Marine Biological Institute, for their review of the part of the manuscript related to the East Siberian Sea, valuable comments, and careful editing, which made the text more complete and accurate. We express special thanks to Elena V. Kostyanaya (Oceanological Scientific-Coordination Centre at P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology RAS) for the time she lavishly spent on the search and selection of materials for various articles of the Encyclopedia, as well as to Dr. Sergey M. Shapovalov, the Head of the Oceanological Center and Vice-President of SCOR, for supporting our efforts to create encyclopedias of the Russian seas. Invaluable assistance in the preparation of the Encyclopedia was done by Tatyana I. Abakumova, whose endless patience and professionalism allowed to bring this work to completion. The authors would like to offer a special thanks to the “Integrated Training Centre” for translating the Encyclopedia into the English language and ensur- ing accuracy and top-notch quality of the offered translation. Specifically, we are grateful to Helen Panovich, the company’s director; to Sergey Chelnokov, Project Manager and Chief Translator and Editor; and to the translators: Irina Champuridze, Dmitry Glushenko, Gennady Golovin, Polina Ivkova, Polina Kiseleva, Yulia Kurganova, Daria Raskova, Ekaterina Tatarenko, and Daria Turkina. Without your contributions and tedious work, the publication of the Encyclopedia would not have been possible. Acknowledgment vii

The authors express their deep gratitude to the leadership of the S.Yu. Witte Moscow University, charitable foundation “CREATION XXI Century” and to Nikolai G. Malyshev, the Chairman of its Board of Trustees, for financial support of translation and preparation of the manuscript. The work on “The Eastern Arctic Seas Encyclopedia” was supported by the Russian Science Foundation under the project N 14-50-00095.

Moscow, Russia Prof. Igor S. Zonn 9 May 2015 Prof. Andrey G. Kostianoy Prof. Aleksandr V. Semenov Introduction

“The Eastern Arctic Seas Encyclopedia” is the fourth one in the new series of encyclopedias about the seas of the former Soviet Union published by Springer-Verlag. The first volume “The Aral Sea Encyclopedia” was published by Springer in 2009, “The Caspian Sea Encyclopedia” in 2010, and “The Black Sea Encyclopedia” in 2015. We have to note that in 2004–2015, in Russian edition we published 13 volumes of the encyclopedias for every sea of the former Soviet Union. Springer publishes the updated and upgraded ver- sions of these books in English by compiling several seas in one volume for the present “The Eastern Arctic Seas Encyclopedia” for the , East Siberian Sea, and Chukchi Sea, and for the next volumes to be published in 2015–2016: “The Western Arctic Seas Encyclopedia” for the Barents Sea, White Sea, and Kara Sea; “The Far Eastern Seas Encyclopedia” for the Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk, and Bering Sea. The last book “The Baltic Sea Encyclopedia” will appear as a separate volume in this book series. The Eastern Arctic seas of the Arctic Ocean include the Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi seas. These are transit marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, located on the Northern Sea Route. In the west, these seas border with the Western seas of the Russian Arctic and, in particular, with the Kara Sea. In the east, where the Chukchi Sea is connected to the Bering Sea through the Bering Strait, there is a state border between Russia and the United States. In the Eastern Arctic seas, there are a number of large islands – New Siberian Islands, Anjou Islands, Lyakhovskiy Islands, Medvezhii Islands, Wrangel Island, Ayon Island, Gerald Island, etc. Several rivers run to the seas, among them one of the largest Siberian rivers – the , as well as Khatanga, Olenyok, Yana, Anabar, , Kolyma, and Alazeya rivers.

ix x Introduction

The Eastern Arctic seas (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/East_Siberian_Sea_map.png)

These seas are one of the most severe and coldest Arctic seas due to their high-latitude location and the presence of polar ice caps, which cover the seas from October to May–June. Shores are strongly indented, and although there are bays they are shallow and there is a lack of sheltered anchorage areas. Their main purpose is transit. The only significant ports are Tiksi, Pevek, and low-density port Ambarchik. Severe nature, sparse population, and remote- ness from the central regions of Russia significantly limit the ability of the economic use of these seas. of the shores of the Eastern Arctic seas started in the seventeenth century, when the Russian Arctic navigators and explorers went on the boats along the coasts between the rivers Lena and Kolyma, in other words, when Russians advanced along the Great Northern Sea Route to Eastern Siberia. In 1633, Tobolsk Cossacks Ivan Rebrov and Ilya Perfiliev discovered the Olenyok River mouth, and in 5 years they also discovered Yana Bay. Ivan Rebrov was the first who passed Dmitry Laptev Strait. In 1642, Cossack Mikhail Stadukhin with a group of servitors and industrial people on koch boats reached the Alazeya River, and in the next year the mouth of the Kolyma River. There is no doubt that Russian Cossacks and explorers first saw the islands lying along the coasts of the East Siberian Sea. In 1646, the pioneer of the East Siberian Sea, Pomor Isay Ignatiev, on his koch boat for the first time in history of Russian navigation moved from the mouth of the Kolyma River to the east and explored about 300 km of the North Asian coast and Ayon Island. In 1648, two Russian sailors Semen Dezhnev and Fedot Popov first rounded the extreme north-eastern point of Asia and proved the existence of the passage from the Chukchi Sea to the Bering Sea, or from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Introduction xi

In 1712, Cossack Merkuriy Vagin reached by the sea Bolshoy Lyakhovskiy Island, traveled in it, and saw Malyi Lyakhovskiy Island from its northern coast. Among the pioneer explorers of the Laptev Sea were G. Semenov, I.E. Erastov, V.E. Bugor, I. Lyakhov, Ivanov Postnik, E.Yu. Buza, and M.V. Stadukhin. The Fifth Detachment of the Great Northern Expedition (Second Kamchatka Expe- dition) described the coasts from the Yana River to the east from 1735 to 1742. They were P. Lasinius and then A. Lozhkin, D.Ya. Laptev, and Kh.P. Laptev. In 1762–1766, N. Shalaurov tried to find the sea passage from the Lena and Kolyma mouths around Chukotka, but died with the crew of his ship near Chaun Bay. In 1787, the North-Eastern astronomical expedition headed by I. Billings and G. Sarychev on two small boats tried to pass the East Siberian Sea from the Kolyma River along the northern coast of Chukotka, but was able to pass only to Cape Bolshoy Baranov. The outstanding efforts in the investigation of the Eastern Arctic seas and islands belong to Russian sea explorers: V. Bering, O.E. Kotzebue, Ya. Sannikov, M.M. Gedenshtrom, Admiral P.F Anjou, M.N. Vasiliev, G.S. Shishmarev, A.A. Bunge, E.V. Toll, A.V. Kolchak, F. Wrangel, N.A. Begichev et al., and later to Soviet geographers, oceanographers, and geologists I.P. Tolmachev, B.V. Davydov, G.A. Ushakov, and G.E. Ratmanov. Among foreign explorers and travellers – Englishmen , C. Clerke, F. Beechey, and H. Kellet; Americans T. Long and G.W. De Long; Canadian V. Stefansson; and many others. During the First , first meteorological station was operating in 1882–1884 at Sagastyr Island in the Lena River mouth, and only in 1932 a permanent polar meteorological station was opened in Tiksi, which is still active today. The same year another polar meteorological station was organized on Kotelnyi Island. In 1878, a well-known Swedish polar explorer A.E. Nordenskjöld travelled by sea from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean along the northern coasts of Europe and Asia on the “Vega” ship. A part of his travel passed via the Eastern Arctic seas, where he made regular meteorological and oceanographic observations. In 1893, an outstanding Norwegian polar explorer F. Nansen, in his attempt to reach the on the “,” entered the Laptev Sea, and northward from Kotelnyi Island started his drift to north-west. In 1918, heavy ice fields in the Laptev Sea stopped the “” ship of another outstanding Norwegian polar explorer R. Amundsen, who traveled by the North-Eastern Passage with the aim to repeat the voyage of F. Nansen. In the twentieth century, refinement of geographical maps was made on the basis of astronomical works by K. Vollosovich (1909), G. Sedov (1909), and on the basis of the hydrographic expedition to the Arctic Ocean on the ships “” and “Vaigach” (1911–1914). The first nonscheduled cargo cruises were launched in 1911, the so-called Kolyma operations from Vladivostok to Kolyma. During the Soviet period, the systematic exploration and development of the and the Northern Sea Route began. After the passages of “A. Sibiryakov” (1932), “Chelyuskin” (1933), and “F. Litke” (1934) through the Northern Sea Route in the East Siberian Sea, there were xii Introduction conducted voyages of ships and numerous expeditions on the icebreakers “Krasin” (1935), “Sedov” (1937), “Malygin” (1939–1940), and “North Pole”(1946). During the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) transportation across the North- ern Sea Route as well as passage of warships of the Pacific Fleet in the northern theater of war were carried out. A large amount of military and cargo transpor- tation was done through the Arctic ports Pevek, Ambarchik, and Tiksi. Each Arctic Sea has its own historical tragedy, including the Eastern Arctic seas. In 1901–1902, in the Laptev Sea dramatic events happened with the expedition of Baron E. Toll who tried to find the legendary Sannikov Land on the schooner “” and died in the Arctic. Several ships were lost in the East Siberian Sea: an American schooner “Elizif” in 1929, “Revolutionary” in 1933, “Mossovet” in 1947, and “Vitimles” in 1965. The steamer “A. Sibiryakov” performed a very hard voyage in 1932, the first in the history of navigation passage of the Northern Sea Route in a single navigation. In 1933–1934, the “Krasin” helped the passage of the first Lena expedition to deliver goods to the Far East. In 1938, the icebreaker “Ermak” helped the icebreakers “” and “Malygin” get free from the ice captivity in the Laptev Sea. In the Laptev Sea, a heroic drift of the icebreaker “G. Sedov” lasted 812 days. Ice crushed the timber ship “Rabochiy” in 1938 and the transport ship “Bryanskles” in 1980. One event of the twentieth century of passing the Northern Sea Route is world- known – the icebreaker “Chelyuskin” was lost in 1934 in the Chukchi Sea. The heroic rescue of its crew became an epic story. In the postwar period (after 1945), the progress in the construction of the icebreaker fleet has allowed to solve problems of the northern delivery of goods, transportation of hydrocar- bons, and other essential goods. Currently, it has been decided to expand and modernize the port of Tiksi, located in the Laptev Sea near the mouth of the Lena River, which is the main supply base for all maritime cabotage navigation in the eastern part of the Russian Arctic. It should be noted that for many years the Eastern Arctic seas were completely closed to free economic activity, and even more so for international shipping. This has affected the poor knowledge of the region and its develop- ment. In this regard, we should mention the following expeditions aimed to explore the seas on board of the “Sedov” and “Sadko” ships in 1937, which were led by V.Yu. Vize; in 1980 the hydrological expedition of the Arctic and Research Institute on board of the “Akademik Shokalskiy” ship under Ya.Ya. Gakkel leadership, and others. Since 1993, the program “Laptev Sea Ecosystem” has been performed by the Russian-German expedition. In order to improve the management structure and coordination of search and rescue of people in distress in the waters of the Northern Sea Route, the Marine Rescue Sub-Center (Center in Dikson) was established in Tiksi. It operates during the navigation season (July–October) on a rotational basis. Oil was discovered in 1933 on the shores of the Laptev Sea. Later there were found several oil fields. Integrated geophysical studies in the Khatanga Bay performed by “Yuzhmorgeologiya” were renewed in 2007. They indicate high oil and gas potential of the Eastern Taymyr. “Rosneft” and “Exxon Mobil” signed an agreement for the exploration of the Ust-Olenyok, Introduction xiii

Ust-Lenskiy, and Anisinsko-Novosibirsk deposits in the Laptev Sea, consid- ering them as the most promising ones. This Encyclopedia is designed to accumulate and systematize our knowl- edge about the unique natural water areas – the Laptev, East Siberian, and Chukchi seas – their wealth, the events that took place on its waters and shores, and the remarkable people whose lives were are closely intertwined with the seas. The Encyclopedia contains about 1,500 terms and concepts related to the seas. It describes geographical features: rivers, lakes, straits, bays; provides information about towns, seaports, transport communications, basic aquatic biological species, nature reserves, national and international programs for the study of the sea, research institutes, historical monuments, activities of prom- inent explorers and travelers, researchers, and scientists. The Encyclopedia includes a chronology of major historical events connected with the Eastern Arctic seas for more than 400 years. This Encyclopedia is designed to satisfy the needs of many readers in the knowledge of the history and geography of the Arctic Russia. Anticipating possible comments on the text, we would like to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that the present Encyclopedia is the author’s approach, especially in the selection of natural and historical facts, which give, in our opinion, the idea of the past and present of the Eastern Arctic seas and their surrounding areas. Thus, we keep the responsibility for possible inaccuracies and alternative interpretation that may arise. Of course, the information given on the pages of the Encyclopedia is not exhaustive. Many experts have virtually worked on this Encyclopedia; some of them are listed in the bibliography, others – in the online resources listed at the end of the book. The use of these materials unwittingly made them our coauthors. We acknowledge that the preparation of such an encyclopedia requires gaining information and knowledge from people who live and work on the shores of the Eastern Arctic seas. Unfortunately, this seems to be difficult to achieve. Therefore, we consider this work to be a basis for reflections and preparation of future editions of the Encyclopedia by the interested specialists. We have just tried to piece together multiple, diverse, and often conflicting information about these seas.