Location of the De Long Islands.
De Long Islands ( , De Long arıılara; ,
Ostrova De-Longa) are an uninhabited archipelago often included as part of the
Islands, lying north east of Novaya Sibir. This archipelago consists of Jeannette
Island, Vilkitsky Island and
Map of the De Long group.
These five islands have a total area of
228 km². At 75 km², Bennett (Bennetta in Russian) Island
is the largest island. These islands lie around 77°N, are partially
covered by glaciers
, and rise to peaks. In
1996, the total area of these islands covered by ice caps and
glaciers was 80.6 km². This island group belongs to the
(Yakutia) Republic administrative
division of Russia.
The De Long Islands were once major hills within the Great Arctic
Plain that once formed northern part of Late Pleistocene “Beringia
” between Siberia and Alaska during the
Last Glacial Maximum
Weichselian Epoch). These islands are what remains of about 1.6
million square kilometers of the formally subaerial Great Arctic
Plain that now lies submerged below the Arctic Ocean and East Siberian Sea.
At this plain's greatest extent during the
Last Glacial Maximum, sea level was 100-120 m below modern sea
level and the coastline was located 700-1000 kilometers north of
its current position. This plain was neither extensively glaciated
during the Late Pleistocene nor during the Last Glacial Maximum
because it lay in the rain shadow
Northern European ice sheet. The Great Arctic Plain was submerged,
except for the New Siberian and other isolated islands, within a
relatively short time span of 7,000 years during the Early-Middle
During the extremely frigid polar climate of the Last Glacial
Maximum (Late Weichselian Epoch), 17,000 to 24,000 BP, small
passive ice caps did form on the De Long Islands. Fragments of
these ice caps are preserved on Jeannette, Henrietta, and Bennett
Islands. Traces of former Late Weichselian slope and cirque glaciers
in the form of
buried ground ice deposits are preserved on Zhokhov Island.
, Middle Paleozoic,
, and Neogene
rocks have been mapped within the De Long
Islands. The Early Paleozoic rocks are Cambrian
rocks interbedded with minor
amounts of limestone
. The Middle Paleozoic
rocks consist of predominately folded
and faulted basaltic
, and sills
. Cretaceous rocks are composed of
basalts and interbedded argillites
and minor coals
. The youngest rocks exposed within the De Long
Islands are Neogene basaltic volcanic rocks.
Jeannette Island, Henrietta Island, and Bennett Island were
discovered in 1881 by the ill-fated Jeannette
commanded by Lieutenant Commander George W. DeLong
. De Long claimed these islands for
the U.S. The United States
Department of State has asserted that claim has never been made by the
United States to any of the islands, and the US recognizes it as
though the United States Department of
has asserted that Henrietta Island had been
possessed.During 1916 the Russian ambassador in London issued an
official notice to the effect that the Imperial government
considered these islands were integral parts of the Russian Empire.
This territorial claim was later maintained by the Soviet Union. A
resolution of the Alaska State Senate in 1988 supported an American
claim to the islands, but during 1994 the Alaska State Supreme
Court ruled in D. Denardo v. State of Alaska that Bennett Island,
along with several islands, is not part of Alaska.
1901 Russian Arctic ship Zarya headed across the Laptev Sea, searching for the legendary Sannikov Land (Zemlya Sannikova) but was soon
blocked by floating pack ice in the
During 1902 the attempts to reach Sannikov
Land, deemed to be beyond the De Long Islands, continued while
was trapped in fast ice. Leaving the ship,
Russian Arctic explorer Baron Eduard
Toll and three companions vanished forever in November 1902 in
the while travelling away from Bennett Island towards the south on loose ice floes.
Vilkitsky Island (East Siberian Sea) and Zhokhov Island were
discovered by Boris Vilkitsky
the Imperial Russian Arctic Ocean Hydrographic
he led in 1913 and 1914 respectively. They lie
slightly further south (around 76°N), are unglaciated, and lower
Henrietta was the site of a research station from 1937 to
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Kos’ko, M.K., 1992, Major tectonic interpretations and
constraints for the New Siberian Islands region, Russia
Arctic. 1992 Proceedings International Conference on Arctic
Margins, International Conference on Arctic Margins, US Marine
Management Service, Alaska Region, Anchorage, Alaska, pp.
- Kos’ko, M.K., and G.V. Trufanov, 2002, Middle Cretaceous to Eopleistocene Sequences on
the New Siberian Islands: an approach to interpret offshore
seismic. Marine and Petroleum Geology. vol. 19, no. 7, pp.
- De Long, George Washington, 1883, The Voyage of the
Jeannette. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
- Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, 2003, US State Department Fact Sheet. Washington,
- Secretary of the Navy, 1882, The Jeannette Expedition in Report of the
Secretary of the Navy, for the Year 1882. US Government
Printing Office, Washington, DC
- The Alaska Legal Resource Center, nd, D. Denardo v. State of
Alaska (12/23/94), 887 P 2d 947
- Headland, R. K.,1994, OSTROVA DE-LONGA ('De Long Islands'), Scott
Polar Research Institute