Peschany Island

This article is about the island in the Laptev Sea. For other similarly named places, see Peschany.

Coordinates: 74°21′N 116°01′E / 74.350°N 116.017°E / 74.350; 116.017

Peschany Island
о́стров Песча́ный
Island

Map of the island.

Location of Peschany Island in the Laptev Sea
Country Russian Federation
Republic Sakha Republic

Peschany Island (Russian: о́стров Песча́ный; 'Sandy Island'), also known as Ostrov Mel, is an unusually-shaped island in the Laptev Sea.[1]

Geography

Peschany Island consists of a 12 kilometers (7.5 mi)-long elliptical landspit which is broken in its eastern and southeastern side forming three smaller islands. The curved spit encloses a shallow lagoon, making Peschany look like a tropical atoll in the maps. This island is barren and uninhabited.[2]

Peschany is located 74 kilometers (46 mi) to the east of Bolshoy Begichev Island. The Siberian coast lies 62 kilometers (39 mi) to the south.[3]

The sea surrounding Peschany Island is covered with pack ice in the winter. There are large polynias forming on the sea in Peschany Island's vicinity.[4] The climate is marked by severe Arctic weather with frequent gales and low temperatures even in the short summer season which lasts barely two months.

There are colonies of walruses on this lonely island.

A British yachtsman visiting Peschany Island recently commented on the weather and on the desolation of the place: "I have been anchored off Ostrov Peschany for a week now and during that time have had to move position eight times. There is, as a rule of thumb, a gale per day lasting between 8 and 12 hours" ... "Ostrov Peschany must be one of the bleakest and least inviting islands anywhere in the world."[5]

Administration

The island is administered by the Sakha Republic of Russia.

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, February 27, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.