Bennett Island ( rus, Остров Бе́ннетта, r=Ostrov Bennetta; sah, Беннетт Aрыыта, translit= Bennett Arııta) is the largest of the
De Long Islands
The De Long Islands ( rus, Острова Де-Лонга, r=Ostrova De-Longa; sah, Де Лоҥ Aрыылара, translit=De Loñ Arıılara) are an uninhabited archipelago often included as part of the New Siberian Islands, lying north east of ...
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 Si ...
. The area of this island is approximately and it has a
tombolo
A tombolo is a sandy or shingle isthmus. A tombolo, from the Italian ', meaning 'pillow' or 'cushion', and sometimes translated incorrectly as ''ayre'' (an ayre is a shingle beach of any kind), is a deposition landform by which an island becom ...
at its eastern end. The highest point of the island is high Mount De Long, the highest point of the archipelago. Bennett Island is part of the
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 Eas ...
administrative division of Russia.
History
Bennett Island was discovered in regards to non-indigenous explorers by USA explorer
George W. De Long
George Washington De Long (22 August 1844 – ) was a United States Navy officer and explorer who led the ill-fated ''Jeannette'' expedition of 1879–1881, in search of the Open Polar Sea.
Career
''Jeannette'' expedition
In 1879, ...
in 1881, and named after
James Gordon Bennett Jr.
James Gordon Bennett Jr. (May 10, 1841May 14, 1918) was publisher of the ''New York Herald'', founded by his father, James Gordon Bennett Sr. (1795–1872), who emigrated from Scotland. He was generally known as Gordon Bennett to distinguish him ...
, who had financed the expedition. De Long set out in 1879 aboard the , hoping to reach
Wrangel Island
Wrangel Island ( rus, О́стров Вра́нгеля, r=Ostrov Vrangelya, p=ˈostrəf ˈvrangʲɪlʲə; ckt, Умӄиԓир, translit=Umqiḷir) is an island of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. It is the 91st largest island in the w ...
and to discover open seas in the Arctic Ocean near the
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distinguish from the Mag ...
. However, the ship entered an ice pack near
Herald Island in September 1879, and became trapped. The vessel was crushed by the ice and sank in June 1881. At that point the party was forced to trek over the ice on foot, discovering Bennett Island during July 1881, and claiming it for the United States. They remained on the island for several days before setting out again for the
New Siberian Islands
The New Siberian Islands ( rus, Новосиби́рские Oстрова, r=Novosibirskiye Ostrova; sah, Саҥа Сибиир Aрыылара, translit=Saña Sibiir Arıılara) are an archipelago in the Extreme North of Russia, to the north o ...
and the mainland of Siberia.
[Naval Historical Center, 2003a]
''A Lengthy Deployment: The Jeannette Expedition in Arctic Waters as Described in Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Navy, 1880–1884''
Last visited May 26, 2008.[Naval Historical Center, 2003b]
Last visited May 26, 2008.
![Bennet Island;h92134](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Bennet_Island%3Bh92134.jpg)
In August 1901, Russian polar ship
''Zarya'' sailed on an expedition searching for the legendary
Sannikov Land
Sannikov Land (russian: Земля Санникова) was a phantom island in the Arctic Ocean. Its supposed existence became something of a myth in 19th-century Russia.
History
Yakov Sannikov and Matvei Gedenschtrom claimed to have seen the ...
but was soon blocked by floating pack ice. During 1902 the attempts to reach Sannikov Land continued while ''Zarya'' was trapped in fast ice. Russian explorer Baron
Eduard Toll
Eduard Gustav Freiherr von Toll (russian: Эдуа́рд Васи́льевич Толль, translit=Eduárd Vasíl'evič Toll'; 1902), better known in Russia as Eduard Vasilyevich Toll and often referred to as Baron von Toll, was a Russian ge ...
and three companions vanished forever in November 1902 while travelling away from Bennett Island towards the south on loose ice floes.
[ Barr, W., 1980]
''Baron Eduard von Toll's Last Expedition: The Russian Polar Expedition, 1900–1903''.
Arctic. vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 201–224.
In 1916, the Russian ambassador in London issued an official notice to the effect that the Imperial government considered Bennett, along with other Arctic islands, integral parts of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. This territorial claim was later maintained by the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
.
Some individuals
assert American ownership of Bennett Island, and others of the De Long group, based on the 1881 landing. However, the United States government has never claimed Bennett Island, and recognizes it as Russian territory.
[Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, US State Department, 2003]
''Status of Wrangel and other Arctic islands''
Last visited May 26, 2008.
Geology
![2010-09-30 20-34-56 DSC 0047 Boris](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/2010-09-30_20-34-56_DSC_0047_Boris.jpg)
Bennett Island consists of Early
Paleozoic
The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon.
The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838
by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...
, late
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...
,
Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58[Quaternary
The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...](_blank)
sedimentary
Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic matter, organic particles at Earth#Surface, Earth's surface, followed by cementation (geology), cementation. Sedimentati ...
and
igneous
Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or ...
rocks. The oldest rocks outcropping on Bennett island are moderately tilted
marine Cambrian
The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized C with bar, Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million ...
to
Ordovician
The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start ...
sedimentary rocks. They consist of an approximately thick sequence of
argillite
:''"Argillite" may also refer to Argillite, Kentucky.''
Argillite () is a fine-grained sedimentary rock composed predominantly of indurated clay particles. Argillaceous rocks are basically lithified muds and oozes. They contain variable amounts ...
s with minor amounts of
siltstone
Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility.Blatt ''et al.'' 1980, p ...
, and
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...
that contain Middle Cambrian
trilobite
Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the At ...
s and of Ordovician argillites, siltstones, and
quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...
sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks.
Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...
s that contain
graptolite
Graptolites are a group of colonial animals, members of the subclass Graptolithina within the class Pterobranchia. These filter-feeding
Filter feeders are a sub-group of suspension feeding animals that feed by straining suspended matter and ...
s. These Paleozoic rocks are overlain by Late Cretacecous
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
-bearing argillites and
quartzite
Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tect ...
-like sandstones and
basalt
Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...
ic
lava
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 ...
and
tuff
Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock cont ...
with lenses of tuffaceous argillite. The Late Cretaceous strata is overlain by basaltic lavas ranging in age from Pliocene to Quaternary. The Quaternary volcanic rocks form volcanic cones.
[Kos’ko, M.K., B.G. Lopatin, and V.G. Ganelin, 1990, ''Major geological features of the islands of the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas and the Northern Coast of Chukotka.'' ''Marine Geology''. 93, pp. 349–367][Kos' ko, M.K. and Trufanov, G.V., 2002. ''Middle Cretaceous to Eopleistocene sequences on the New Siberian Islands: an approach to interpret offshore seismic.'' ''Marine and Petroleum Geology'', 19(7), pp.901-919.][Kos'ko, M. and Korago, E., 2009. ''Review of geology of the new Siberian islands between the Laptev and the East Siberian Seas, North East Russia''. ''Stephan Mueller Special Publication Series'', 4, pp.45-64.]
Climate
Little has been published about the climatology of Bennett Island in the English language literature. Dr. Glazovskiy
[Glazovskiy, A.F., 1996, ''Russian Arctic.'' in J. Jania and J.O. Hagen, eds]
Mass Balance of Arctic Glaciers.
International Arctic Science Committee (Working Group on Arctic Glaciology) Report No. 5, Faculty of Earth Sciences University of Silesia, Sosnowiec-Oslo, Norway. 62 pp. stated that the annual precipitation on Bennett Island varied from at sea level to at the crest of the Tollya Ice Cap.
Glaciers
![Bennett - Landsat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Bennett_-_Landsat.jpg)
Bennett Island has the largest permanent ice cover within the De Long Islands. In 1987, the permanent
ice cap
In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than of land area (usually covering a highland area). Larger ice masses covering more than are termed ice sheets.
Description
Ice caps are not constrained by topographical features ...
of this island consisted of four separate
glacier
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#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...
s that had a total area of . All of these glaciers were perched on high, basaltic plateaus bounded by steep scarp-like slopes.
[Verkulich, S.R., A.G. Krusanov, and M.A. Anisimov, 1992, ''The present state of, and trends displayed by, the glaciers of Bennett Island in the past 40 years.'' Polar Geography and Geology. vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 51–57.]
In 1992, Dr. Verkulich and others
[ named these glaciers as the De Long East, De Long West, Malyy, and Toll glaciers. With an area of in 1987, Toll Glacier was the largest of them. It occupied the center of Bennett Island; had an elevation of above mean sea level; and was thick at its center. It had an outlet glacier, West Seeberg Glacier, from which ice flowed downhill from Toll Glacier into the sea. The next largest glacier was De Long East Glacier with an area of in 1987. It laid about above mean sea level at the southeast end of Bennett Island and had a thickness of . Adjacent to De Long East Glacier laid the De Long West Glacier with an area of ; an elevation of above mean sea level; and a thickness of in 1987. Malyy Glacier, with an area of in 1987, occupied a basaltic plateau at an elevation of above mean sea level on the northeast end of Bennett Island and was thick. In 1987, all of these glaciers were shrinking in volume and had been so for the past 40 years.][
Of the glaciers described by Dr. Verkulich and others,][ Dr. Glazovskiy][ discusses only the Toll Ice Cap, which Dr. Verkulich and others][ referred to as "Toll Glacier". In 1996, it had an area of and a mean elevation of above sea level. Its equilibrium line altitude was at an elevation of 200 m (660 ft) above sea level.][
According to Alekseev,][Alekseev, M.N., 1997, ''Paleogeography and geochronology in the Russian eastern Arctic during the second half of the Quaternary.'' Quaternary International. vol. 41–42, pp. 11–15.] Anisimov and Tumskoy,[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. and Makeyev and others,[Makeyev, V.M., V.V. Pitul’ko, and A.K. Kasparov, 1992, ''The natural environment of the De Long Archipelago and ancient man in the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene.'' Polar Geography and Geology. vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 55–63.] the glaciers found on Bennett and other islands of the De Long Islands are remnants of small passive ice caps formed during the Last Glacial Maximum
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Late Glacial Maximum, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period that ice sheets were at their greatest extent.
Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Eur ...
(Late Weichselian Epoch) about 17,000 to 24,000 BP. At the time that these ice caps formed, the De Long Islands were major hills within a large subaerial plain, called the Great Arctic Plain, that now lies submerged below the Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
and East Siberian Sea.[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.
Vegetation
Rush/grass, forb, cryptogam tundra covers the Bennett Island. It is tundra consisting mostly of very low-growing grasses, rushes, forbs, mosses, lichens, and liverworts. These plants either mostly or completely cover the surface of the ground. The soils are typically moist, fine-grained, and often hummocky.[CAVM Team, 2003]
''Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map.''
Scale 1:7,500,000. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) Map No. 1. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Anchorage, Alaska.
Atmospheric plumes
Bennett Island plumes are a phenomenon in the arctic that had been a mystery to atmospheric scientists for decades until it was finally explained by a collaborative, post-cold war United States and Russian expedition in the 1990s. For years, scientists observed large, sometimes hundreds of miles long plumes emanating from the northeast coast of Russia over the remote Bennett Island and scientists hypothesized that the plumes were caused by volcanoes, gas plumes or even Soviet cold war testing before satellite observations revealed them to be meteorological in origin.
The most popular theory among scientists was that the plumes were formed when clathrates
A clathrate is a chemical substance consisting of a lattice that traps or contains molecules. The word ''clathrate'' is derived from the Latin (), meaning ‘with bars, latticed’. Most clathrate compounds are polymeric and completely envelop t ...
—methane, trapped and frozen into a crystalline structure similar to ice by a combination of low temperatures and high pressures—melted and released methane gas. These gas deposits can melt, bubble to the surface and erupt like a geyser into the atmosphere.
Due to remaining cold-war tensions, and the Soviet military's desire to protect the secrecy of submarine facilities, western scientists were only able to observe the plumes remotely via satellite. The melting permafrost/clathrate hypothesis was unable to be tested until spring of 1992, when US and Russian Scientists in Siberia were able to conduct an air-borne expedition conduct a sampling of the plume and surprisingly found no methane.
Scientists had initially dismissed the meteorological explanation of the clouds because the plumes only seemed to be unique to Bennett Island and not the other, similar islands, and because it was thought that the 1,000 foot high island was too low to generate orographic cloud
Orographic lift occurs when an air mass is forced from a low elevation to a higher elevation as it moves over rising terrain. As the air mass gains altitude it quickly cools down adiabatically, which can raise the relative humidity to 100% and cr ...
s. Orographic clouds normally form when air is forced to rise as it passes over a mountain and cools.
Bennett Island plumes form due to the layering of arctic air at different, very cold temperatures. The region is relatively remote, with only warmer polynyas
A polynya () is an area of open water surrounded by sea ice. It is now used as a geographical term for an area of unfrozen seawater within otherwise contiguous pack ice or fast ice. It is a loanword from the Russian полынья (), whic ...
—open water surrounded by sea ice – to potentially provide instability. When air hits the elevated Bennett Island, which behaves like an airplane air foil, it rises up, sometimes to over , nucleate
In thermodynamics, nucleation is the first step in the formation of either a new thermodynamic phase or structure via self-assembly or self-organization within a substance or mixture. Nucleation is typically defined to be the process that dete ...
s, condenses and forms a cloud. The catalyst for the generation of the plumes was difficult to pinpoint because the apparent source region of the plume can appear to shift with time depending on the weakening or intensification of the strength of the wind flowing over the mountain. Consequently, the plumes were determined to be excellent indicators of the location of arctic fronts and jet stream activity.
Presently, the mystery of Bennett Island plumes has not completely been solved; scientists are still seeking an explanation for why the plumes form at an unusually high altitude of over above the mountain tops. Scientists are also studying the dynamics of the island, and why its unique shape is able to generate these plumes.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
De Long Islands
Ice caps of Russia
Islands of the East Siberian Sea
Islands of the Sakha Republic