Vilkitsky Island (russian: Остров Вильки́цкого, translit=Ostrov Vilkitskogo; sah, Вилькицкай Aрыыта, translit=Vil'kitskay Arııta) is the southernmost island of the
De Long group in the northern part of the
East Siberian Sea
The East Siberian Sea ( rus, Восто́чно-Сиби́рское мо́ре, r=Vostochno-Sibirskoye more) is a marginal sea in the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the Arctic Cape to the north, the coast of Siberia to the south, the New ...
. The nearest island is
Zhokhov Island
Zhokhov Island ( rus, Остров Жохова, r=Ostrov Zhokhova; sah, Жохов Aрыыта, translit=Joqov Arııta) is an island in the East Siberian Sea, situated 128 km north east of Novaya Sibir Island, the easternmost of the New S ...
. Administratively Vilkitsky Island belongs to
Yakutia
Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia),, is the largest republic of Russia, located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of roughly 1 million. Sakha comprises half of the area of its governing Far E ...
, an administrative division of the
Russian Federation
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
.
[Respublika Sakha (Yakutiya) Land Feature Database]
The island is named after Russian
hydrographer
Hydrography is the branch of applied sciences which deals with the measurement and description of the physical features of oceans, seas, coastal areas, lakes and rivers, as well as with the prediction of their change over time, for the primary p ...
Andrey Vilkitsky.
Geography
The island is outside of the limits of permanent ice and is
unglaciated
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 ...
. At barely Vilkitsky is the smallest island of the group. The highest elevation is
above sea level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance ( height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as '' orthometric heights''.
Th ...
.
Headland, R. K. (1994): OSTROVA DE-LONGA ('De Long Islands')
/ref>
Geology
Judging from bedrock
In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet.
Definition
Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of be ...
outcrop
An outcrop or rocky outcrop is a visible exposure of bedrock or ancient superficial deposits on the surface of the Earth.
Features
Outcrops do not cover the majority of the Earth's land surface because in most places the bedrock or superficia ...
s associated with the central, steepest part of seacliff
Seacliff comprises a beach, an estate and a harbour. It lies east of North Berwick, East Lothian, Scotland.
History
The beach and estate command a strategic position at the mouth of the Firth of Forth, and control of the area has been c ...
s on its southern coast, Vilkitsky Island is composed of limburgite, a dense dark gray volcanic
A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plat ...
rock. The limburgite is represent by varieties with both crystalline textures and glassy, devitrified matrix. This volcanic rock occurs as both massive intrusion
In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...
s and lava flow
Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or un ...
s, both of which exhibit narrow shear zone
In geology, a shear zone is a thin zone within the Earth's crust or upper mantle that has been strongly deformed, due to the walls of rock on either side of the zone slipping past each other. In the upper crust, where rock is brittle, the she ...
s. The limburgite contains small olivine
The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface, but weathers qui ...
phenocryst
300px, feldspathic phenocrysts. This granite, from the Switzerland">Swiss side of the Mont Blanc massif, has large white plagioclase phenocrysts, triclinic minerals that give trapezoid shapes when cut through). 1 euro coins, 1 euro coin (diameter ...
s and xenolith
A xenolith ("foreign rock") is a rock fragment ( country rock) that becomes enveloped in a larger rock during the latter's development and solidification. In geology, the term ''xenolith'' is almost exclusively used to describe inclusions in ig ...
s of spinel lherzolite
Lherzolite is a type of ultramafic igneous rock. It is a coarse-grained rock consisting of 40 to 90% olivine along with significant orthopyroxene and lesser amounts of calcic chromium-rich clinopyroxene. Minor minerals include chromium and a ...
s. The spinel lherzolite xenoliths of Vilkitsky Island are structurally and mineralogically identical to the xenoliths found on of Zhokhov Island.[Silant'ev S.A., Bogdanovskii, O.G., Savostin, L.A., and Kononkova, N.I., 1991. ''Magmatizm arkhipelaga De Longa (vostochnaya Arktika). Petrologiya i petrokhimiya effuzivnykh porod i assotsiiruyushchikh s nimi ksenolitov (ostrova Zhokhova i Vil'kitskogo) agmatism of the De Long Archipelago (eastern Arctic). Petrology and petrochemistry of volcanic rocks, and associated xenoliths (Zhokhova and Vilkitsky Islands)'' ''Geokhimiya'', (2) pp. 267-277.][Silant'ev, S.A., Karpenko, S.F., Bogdanovskii, O.G. and Fedorov, P.I., 2004. ''Intraplate magmatism of the De Long Islands: A response to the propagation of the ultraslow-spreading Gakkel Ridge into the passive continental margin in the Laptev Sea.'' ''Russian Journal of Earth Sciences'', 6(3) pp. 153-183.] Based on limited data, volcanism on Vil’kitskii Island occurred between 0.89 and 0.4 Ma. This period of volcanism on Vilkitsky Island correlates with the later stages of olivine alkaline basalt volcanism on Zhokhov Island between 6.1 and 0.4 Ma.[Bogdanovskii, O.G., Mineev, S.D., Assonov, S.S., Silantyev, S.A., Karpenko, S.F., Shukolyukov, Yu.A., and Savostin, L.A., 1992. ''Magmatism on the De Long Islands, eastern Arctic: isotopic geochemistry and geochronology''. ''Geokhimiya'', (1) pp. 47–57.][Bogdanovskii, O.G., Silantyev, S.A., Karpenko, S.F., Mineev, S.D., and Savostin, LA., 1993. ''Ancient mantle xenoliths in young volcanic rocks on Zhokhov Island, De Long Islands'', Dokl. Russ. Akad. Nauk. (330) pp. 750–753.]
History
Vilkitsky Island was discovered early on the morning of August 20, 1913 by the crew of the Icebreaker Taymyr. Along with the Icebreaker Vaygach, it was part of the Imperial Russian Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition
The Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition (GESLO) (1910–1915) was a scientific expedition organized by Russia for the purpose of the development of the Northern Sea Route.
This expedition accomplished its goal of exploring the uncharted areas ...
led by Boris Vilkitsky on behalf of the Russian Hydrographic Service
The Russian Hydrographic Service, full current official name Department of Navigation and Oceanography of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation ( rus, Управление навигации и океанографии Министер ...
in order to chart the last blank areas of Russian maps. Personnel from the Icebreaker Taymyr landed on it and hoisted a Russian flag. On August 24, 1914, a landing party from the Icebreaker Taymyr revisited Vilkitskiy Island and surveyed it.[Starokadomski, L.M. and Cattley, O.J., 1919. ''Vilkitski's North-East Passage, 1914-15.'' ''The Geographical Journal'', 54(6), pp.367-375.][Barr, W., 1985. ''The Arctic Ocean Hydrographic expedition 1910–1915: An overview.'' ''Polar Geography'', 9(4), pp.257-271.] In 1986 and 1988, the Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, now known as the '' Shirshov Institute of Oceanology'', and the Geochemical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences carried out field studies of the geology of the geology of the Zhokhov and Vilkitsky islands.
See also
*List of islands of Russia
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...
References
External links
*Anisimov, M.A., and V.E. Tumskoy, 2002
Environmental History of the Novosibirskie Islands for the last 12 ka.
32nd International Arctic Workshop, Program and Abstracts 2002. Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado at Boulder, pp 23–25.
*Schirrmeister, L., H.-W. Hubberten, V. Rachold, and V.G. Grosse, 2005
''Lost world - Late Quaternary environment of periglacial Arctic shelves and coastal lowlands in NE-Siberia.''
2nd International Alfred Wegener Symposium Bremerhaven, October, 30 - November 2, 2005.
{{East Siberian Sea Islands
De Long Islands
Islands of the East Siberian Sea
Islands of the Sakha Republic