Maly Lyakhovsky Island
Maly Lyakhovsky Island is an island in Russia’s New Siberian Islands archipelago, between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea.
New Siberian Islands: An archipelago in the Russian Arctic between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea. Maly Lyakhovsky is one of this archipelago’s southern islands.
Arctic Ocean: The smallest and shallowest of Earth’s five major oceans, centered on the North Pole. The Laptev and East Siberian seas surrounding the island are marginal seas of this ocean.
Coastal erosion: The wearing away of shorelines by waves, currents, and other processes. Arctic waves can erode the island’s thawing, ice-rich coast.
Yakov Sannikov: A Russian merchant and explorer associated with early nineteenth-century expeditions to the New Siberian Islands. His explorations helped bring the Lyakhovsky Islands into Russian geographic accounts.
Pleistocene megafauna: Large-bodied animals that lived during the Pleistocene epoch. Fossils and remains from the region help reconstruct ancient Arctic ecosystems.
Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island: The largest island of the Lyakhovsky Islands, part of the New Siberian Islands archipelago. It lies immediately south of Maly Lyakhovsky across the Sannikov Strait.
Sannikov Strait: A strait separating the Lyakhovsky Islands from Kotelny Island in the New Siberian Islands. It marks the northern boundary of the Lyakhovsky group, including Maly Lyakhovsky.
Sea ice: Frozen seawater that forms, grows, and melts on the ocean surface. Seasonal sea ice limits wave action, while its retreat can expose coasts to erosion.
Matvei Gedenshtrom: A Russian explorer who surveyed parts of the New Siberian Islands in the early nineteenth century. His expeditions recorded the region containing Maly Lyakhovsky.
Paleoclimatology: The study of past climates using natural records such as sediments, fossils, and ice. Island sediments and permafrost can preserve clues to past Arctic conditions.