Barentsøya, sometimes anglicized as Barents Island, is an

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

in the Svalbard archipelago of

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

, lying between

Edgeøya Edgeøya (), occasionally anglicised as Edge Island, is a Norwegian island located in southeast of the Svalbard archipelago; with an area of , it is the third-largest island in this archipelago. An Arctic island, it forms part of the Søraust-S ...

and Spitsbergen. Barents Island has no permanent human inhabitants. Named for the

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

explorer

Willem Barents Willem Barentsz (; – 20 June 1597), anglicized as William Barents or Barentz, was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, and Arctic explorer. Barentsz went on three expeditions to the far north in search for a Northeast passage. He reached as fa ...

(who actually never sighted the island), it is a part of

Søraust-Svalbard Nature Reserve Søraust-Svalbard Nature Reserve ( no, Søraust-Svalbard naturreservat) is located in the south-eastern part of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. The nature reserve covers all of Edgeøya and Barentsøya in addition to a number of smaller island ...

. Barentsøya is an

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...

island. Around 43 per cent of its area of is

glaciated A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such as ...

. To the north, in the sound between Barentsøya and Spitsbergen, lies the island of Kükenthaløya. To the south, the

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' b ...

separating Barents Island from Edgeøya is Freemansundet. In geologic time much of the surface rock has been eroded by

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate be ...

. The entire area is visited by polar bears, who have a recognisable genetic differentiation specialised to the Barents Sea region. At Dørstubukta there is also a large nesting mainly used by kittiwakes.

Geography

Barentsøya has an approximately square shape, with maximum lengths and widths of about fifty kilometers, and an area of . A significant part of the island, more than , is glaciated. The ice cap of Barentsjøkulen covers a large part of the island, with the largest offspring Besselsbreen (north), Duckwitzbreen (west), Freemanbreen (south), and Hübnerbreen (southeast). Barentsjøkulen has the two large ice domes of Peer Gyntslottet and Solveigdomen. The mountain of Schweinfurthberget is a nunatak of Barentsjøkulen. At the northern side of Barentsøya is the ice-free peninsula of Frankenhalvøya, between Ginevra Bay at the western side and Dorstbukta to the east. Grimheia is an ice-free mountainous area extending over a length of about thirteen kilometers at the northern part of the island. The westernmost point of the island is the headland of Mistakodden. At the southern part of Barentsøya are the mountains of Krefftberget and Høgrinden, while Jeppeberget is located to the southeast. The largest lakes of the island are Veslemjøsa in Heimarka, and Dalskilvatnet between the valleys of

Sjodalen Sjodalen is a wide, gently sloping valley in Southern Norway, draining the eastern parts of Jotunheimen. The river Sjoa gives its name to the valley. Sjodalen is generally accepted to start at the outlet from the deep mountain-lake Gjende. The va ...

and Grimdalen. Dorst_bay

References

Line notes

*C. Michael Hogan (2008
''Polar Bear: ''Ursus maritimus'', globalTwitcher.com, ed. Nicklas Stromberg

External links

Svalbard Images: Barentsøya
(URL accessed 26 December 2008) {{DEFAULTSORT:Barentsoya Islands of Svalbard Uninhabited islands of Norway

Geography

See also

References

Line notes

External links