Query: Lena River Delta islands, Siberia, Russia
April 24th, 2006A reader asks: “In my atlas there is a large island at the northwest end of the Lena River delta in the Russian Arctic. It is not named in the atlas, but it appears to be bigger than Vaygach. Have you any information on this?”
The distinct islands shown on some maps of the delta seem to be illusory; see Google maps, which shows a largely unifed delta.
That said, see the map on p. 2 of this paper. “Arga Island” seems largely to correspond with the beige area in the Google satellite view, and could be some 10,000 square km, or 4,000 square miles.
But it’s not much of an island: see these details of the channels that would form its southern boundary.
Virtually the only references to Arga Island online (at least in English) are in the context of that single paper on Nikolay Lake.
This paper has this to say:
The western part of the Lena Delta is formed by a large, 20-m-high sand island fringed by a unique lace coast formed by narrow estuary-like bays deeply penetrating the land. This unique coast undergoes intensive erosion not only on promontories but also inside of estuaries due to storm surges reaching to >2 m height. The sand island is characterized by typical lake-thermokarst relief.
Page 17 of that paper refers to Tit-Ary Island, south of Arga.
Here is a small, real island in the delta, indicating that other islands have names.
So, is there a large island in the northwest of the Lena River Delta? I suppose so, but you can be the judge.
[Russian islands, delta islands]
November 18th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
I’d noticed a geologic formation on the Lena River delta. It’s a circular formation that looks, to me, like an elevated plateau. Since about 1/2 of the formation is in the river channel it seemed obvious that it is resisting erosion and is probably an old island.
Detail: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=“lena+river”+russia&ie=UTF8&z=11&ll=72.567668,127.30957&spn=0.151193,0.639954&t=h&om=1
Wide view of Lena River Delta: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=16182
What I’ve learned so far is that this formation, made up of iron-cemented sandstones, is named Sardarkh island. The rocky island is very unique in the Lena Delta area because the land is mostly made up of ice-rich frozen fluvial peat and sand. This is what makes Sardakh more resistent to the natural erosion that casues the other areas of the delta to so readily shift.
If anyone has been up in that area, I would love to see some photos.
Thanks,
BurlEv