Zhokhov Island ( rus, Остров Жохова, r=Ostrov Zhokhova; sah, Жохов Aрыыта, translit=Joqov Arııta) is an island in 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 ...

, situated 128 km north east of Novaya Sibir Island, the easternmost of 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 ...

. Administratively the island belongs to 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 E ...

administrative division of

Russia 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-ei ...

.Respublika Sakha (Yakutiya) Land Feature Database

Geography

Zhokhov Island is part of the De Long group. The nearest island is Vilkitsky Island, the southernmost island of the group. Zhokhov is in length and has an area of . The highest point of the island is . Although the island itself 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 ...

, the sea surrounding Zhokhov Island is covered with fast ice, even during the summer, and the climate is severe.

Geology

Zhokhov Island is an eroded late

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configu ...

stratovolcano A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a conical volcano built up by many layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with a summit crater and peri ...

. Deeply cut

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 expose alternating flows of massive and blister

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 ...

agglomerate Agglomerate (from the Latin ''agglomerare'' meaning "to form into a ball") is a coarse accumulation of large blocks of volcanic material that contains at least 75% bombs. Volcanic bombs differ from volcanic blocks in that their shape records flu ...

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 ...

. The exposed throat of this volcano is filled with columnar jointed

basalt Basalt (; ) is an 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 surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90 ...

s. The surrounding volcanic edifice consists of interlayered

picrite Picrite basalt or picrobasalt is a variety of high-magnesium olivine basalt that is very rich in the mineral olivine. It is dark with yellow-green olivine phenocrysts (20-50%) and black to dark brown pyroxene, mostly augite. The olivine-rich p ...

–

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 ...

basalts lava flows and beds of

volcanic ash Volcanic ash consists of fragments of rock, mineral crystals, and volcanic glass, created during volcanic eruptions and measuring less than 2 mm (0.079 inches) in diameter. The term volcanic ash is also often loosely used to refer ...

containing large volcanic bombs. The basalt lava flows range in age from 1.2 to 10 Ma according to K–Ar dating. The basalts contain

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

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 silicat ...

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 w ...

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies un ...

syenite Syenite is a coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock with a general composition similar to that of granite, but deficient in quartz, which, if present at all, occurs in relatively small concentrations (< 5%). Some syenites contain larger prop ...

s, and

dolerite Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grain ...

s.Ershova, V.B., Lorenz, H., Prokopiev, A.V., Sobolev, N.N., Khudoley, A.K., Petrov, E.O., Estrada, S., Sergeev, S., Larionov, A. and Thomsen, T.B., 2016. ''The De Long Islands: A missing link in unraveling the Paleozoic paleogeography of the Arctic.'' ''Gondwana Research '', 35, pp.305-322.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. Rare limestone xenoliths contain middle

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carboniferou ...

, tropical, marine

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chorda ...

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s.Makeev, V.M.,Davydov, V.K.,Ustritsky,V.I., 1991. ''Discovery of middle Carboniferous deposits with tropic fauna on the De Long Islands.'' ''Paleozoic Stratigraphy and Paleontology of the Arctic ''. Sevmorgeologia, Leningrad, pp. 167–170.

Vegetation

Rush/grass, forb, cryptogam tundra covers the Zhokhov 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.

History

Mesolithic The Mesolithic ( Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymo ...

humans occupied the island as early as 6000 BCE. Tools of stone, bone, antler, and ivory have been found, as well as wooden arrow shafts and a sledge runner. Animal remains suggest a culture dependent on the hunting of polar bears and

reindeer Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subs ...

. Evidence published in 2017 suggests that the early inhabitants of Zhokhov Island were among the first humans to selectively breed dogs. Findings indicate that larger dogs may have been bred for hunting and smaller dogs weighing to were bred for pulling sleds. DNA extracted from a 9,500-year-old dog, ''Zhokhov'', named after the island, contributed significant genetic material to the Greenland Dog, the

Alaskan Malamute The Alaskan Malamute () is a large breed of dog that was originally bred for its strength and endurance to haul heavy freight as a sled dog and hound. It is similar to other arctic breeds such as the husky, the spitz, the Greenland Dog, Canadi ...

and the Siberian Husky. In modern times, Zhokhov Island was discovered by the 1910–1915 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 ...

under Boris Vilkitsky on the ships ''

Vaygach Vaygach Island (russian: Вайга́ч, ''Vajgač''; Nenets: Вай Хабць, romanized: ''Vai Habcj’'') an island in the Arctic Sea between the Pechora Sea and the Kara Sea. Vaygach Island is separated from the Yugorsky Peninsula in the ...

'' and '' Taymyr''. It was originally named Novopashenniy Island, after Piotr Alekseyevich Novopashenniy (1881–1950) Captain of icebreaker Vaygach, but in 1926 it was renamed after Lieutenant Alexey Zhokhov, a member of the expedition.Starokadomski, L. M. and O. M. Cattley, 1919
"Vilkitski's North-East Passage, 1914-15"
''The Geographical Journal''. vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 367–375.

Climate

In popular culture

Zhokhov Island is mentioned in

Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...

's '' Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'' as a place where the Russians built the doomsday device.Walker, A., S. Taylor, U. Ruchti, 1999, ''Stanley Kubrick, Director.'' W. W. Norton & Company, New York, New York. 376 pp. Ostrov Zhokhova is also mentioned in the Soviet "sad comedy" film by Georgii Danelia "Osennii Marafon" ('' Autumn Marathon''). The film's "hero" Andrei Buzykin's daughter and her husband depart to take up a job in the weather station on Zhokhov Island, to Andrei's horror.

Geography

Geology

Vegetation

History

Climate

In popular culture

See also

References

Further reading