Sukhoy Nos (, literally 'Dry Nose'; there is another Sukhoy Nos on

Vaygach Island Vaygach Island () is an island in the Arctic Sea between the Pechora Sea and the Kara Sea. Geography Vaygach Island is separated from the Yugorsky Peninsula in the mainland by the Yugorsky Strait and from Novaya Zemlya by the Kara Strait. ...

south of Novaya Zemlya) is a

cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment of any length that hangs loosely and connects either at the neck or shoulders. They usually cover the back, shoulders, and arms. They come in a variety of styles and have been used th ...

Severny Island Severny Island () is a Russian Arctic island. It is the northern island of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. It was historically called Lütke Land after Friedrich Benjamin von Lütke, who explored it. It lies approximately 400 km north of th ...

, the northern island of the archipelago

Novaya Zemlya Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; , ; ), also spelled , is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, considered the extreme points of Europe ...

, projecting westward into the

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; , ; ) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian territorial waters.World Wildlife Fund, 2008. It was known earlier among Russi ...

. The site lies near the southwestern corner of the island, from

Mityushikha Bay Mityushikha Bay () is a bay on Severny Island in Novaya Zemlya, Russia. Nuclear tests were conducted in 1961 in the area of the bay, including the 58 megaton yield Tsar Bomba. Geography It is a long fjord open to the west near the SW end of the ...

, north of

Matochkin Strait Matochkin Strait or Matochkin Shar () is a strait, structurally a fjord, between the Severny and Yuzhny Islands of Novaya Zemlya. It connects the Barents Sea and the Kara Sea. Geography The Matochkin Strait is one of the largest fjords in the ...

, which separates Severny from

Yuzhny Island Yuzhny Island () is the southern island of Russia's Novaya Zemlya archipelago, lying north of mainland Russia. It has an area of , which while smaller than the northern island of Severny, still makes it one of the largest islands in the world. I ...

, the southern island of the archipelago. The cape is composed of black and reddish

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

. Underwater sandbars are located off its northern shore. In the 19th century, numerous birds nested on the steep cliffs, particularly

loon Loons (North American English) or divers (British English, British / Irish English) are a group of aquatic birds found in much of North America and northern Eurasia. All living species of loons are members of the genus ''Gavia'', family (biolog ...

s.Сухой Нос
in the ''

Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary The ''Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopaedic Dictionary'' (35 volumes, small; 86 volumes, large) is a comprehensive multi-volume encyclopaedia in Russian. It contains 121,240 articles, 7,800 images, and 235 maps. It was published in the Russian Em ...

'' (Энциклопедический словарь Ф.А. Брокгауза и И.А. Ефрона – С.-Пб.: Брокгауз-Ефрон. 1890–1907)

History

Sukhoy Nos was a site of

nuclear testing Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of Nuclear explosion, their explosion. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to si ...

for the former

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, being the third and the northernmost detonating site of three on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago (designated "Zone C"). It was used between 1958 and 1961 and in October 1961 was the site of the record-breaking 50-megaton hydrogen bomb, known as

Tsar Bomba The Tsar Bomba (code name: ''Ivan'' or ''Vanya''), also known by the alphanumerical designation "AN602", was a Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear aerial bomb, and by far the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested. The Soviet phy ...

References

Novaya Zemlya Russian nuclear test sites Nuclear weapons program of the Soviet Union Sukhoy Nos {{Portal bar, Nuclear technology