The Bolshaya Chukochya or Chukochya (; , ''Revum-Revu'') is a river in the

Sakha Republic Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia, and the largest federal subject of Russia by area. It is located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of one million ...

(Yakutia) of the

Russian Federation Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. It is long, and has a

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

of .

Course

It has its sources in Lake Usun-Kyuel and crosses the tundra roughly northeastwards. In its lower course it flows south of Lake Bolshoye Morskoye. Finally it flows into the Kolyma Gulf of the

East Siberian Sea The East Siberian Sea (; ) 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 Siberian Islands to the west and Cape Billings, close to Chukchi Peninsula, Chukotka, ...

west of the mouths of the

Kolyma Kolyma (, ) or Kolyma Krai () is a historical region in the Russian Far East that includes the basin of Kolyma River and the northern shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as the Kolyma Mountains (the watershed of the two). It is bounded to ...

. Owing to its extreme northerly location the Bolshaya Chukochya freezes up in early October and remains icebound until June. The Bolshaya Chukochya basin is located between the basins of the

Alazeya The Alazeya (; ) is a river in the northeastern part of Yakutia, Russia which flows into the Arctic between the basins of the larger Indigirka to the west and the Kolyma to the east. Mount Kisilyakh-Tas is a notable kigilyakh site on the right b ...

and the Kolyma. There are study sites near the Bolshaya Chukochya in order to investigate the mineral transformations in the soils affected by

permafrost Permafrost () is soil or underwater sediment which continuously remains below for two years or more; the oldest permafrost has been continuously frozen for around 700,000 years. Whilst the shallowest permafrost has a vertical extent of below ...

Tributaries

The main tributaries of the Bolshaya Chukochya are the long Olyor (Олёр) and the long Semen-Yuryakh (Семен-Юрях) on the left, as well as the long Savva-Yuryakh (Савва-Юрях) on the right. There are more than 11,500 lakes in the Bolshaya Chukochya basin, totaling an area of .

Ecology

The Kolyma Lowland, the area where the Bolshaya Chukochya flows, has many lakes and marshes. A great variety of birds, such as

Siberian crane The Siberian crane (''Leucogeranus leucogeranus''), also known as the Siberian white crane or the snow crane, is a bird of the family Gruidae, the crane (bird), cranes. They are distinctive among the cranes: adults are nearly all White, snowy whi ...

wader 245px, A flock of Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to foraging, ...

s and

sandpiper Scolopacidae is a large family of shorebirds, or waders, which mainly includes many species known as sandpipers, but also others such as woodcocks, curlews and snipes. Most of these species eat small invertebrates picked out of the mud or so ...

s, make their habitat in this riverine area. The Cherskii's char ''(Salvelinus czerskii)'', is a char species found in the river basin. Fossil insects, early

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

equid Equidae (commonly known as the horse family) is the Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic Family (biology), family of Wild horse, horses and related animals, including Asinus, asses, zebra, zebras, and many extinct species known only from fossils. The fa ...

s and

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

s have been found in the basin of the Bolshaya Chukochya.Fossil Coleoptera

Early Pleistocene equids (Perissodactyla)

Course

Tributaries

Ecology

See also

References

Further reading