thumb|The Kigilyakh Peninsula

thumb|The Malakatyn River, Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island.

Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island (), or Great Lyakhovsky, is the largest of the Lyakhovsky Islands belonging to the New Siberian Islands archipelago between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea in northern Russia. It has an area of , and a maximum altitude of (Emy Tas).

The peninsula projecting towards the west of the island is the Kigilyakh Peninsula (Poluostrov Kigilyakh).

Off Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island's southwestern cape lies a small islet called Ostrov Khopto-Terer.

The Lyakhovsky Islands are named in honour of Ivan Lyakhov, who explored them in 1773.

A blanket of unconsolidated Cenozoic sediments blankets most of Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island. These sediments include Paleocene to Eocene colluvial, alluvial, and deltaic gravels, sands, clays, and coals and Oligocene to Miocene alluvial, lacustrine, deltaic, and nearshore marine sands and clays that contain beds and lenses of gravel. Overlying these sediments are Pliocene to Pleistocene colluvial, alluvial, and nearshore marine sands, silts, and clays that contain occasional gravel layers. The nearshore marine sediments contain the shells of marine mollusks and pieces of lignitized wood. Thick permafrost characterized by massive ice wedges has developed in these sediments. Contrary to the interpretations of Baron von Toll and earlier geologists, glacial tills and related sediments are completely absent within Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island.

In Soviet times on the Kigilyakh Peninsula Vladimir Voronin, then in charge of the Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Polar Station, was shown a large standing rock which had been heavily eroded and which gave name to the peninsula. The word Kigilyakh means "stone man" in the Yakut language.

Quaternary geology

The southern sea cliffs of Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island, which were first studied by Baron von Toll,

The oldest sediments exposed in the southern sea cliffs of Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island consist of a layer of rocky, yellowish to greenish colored sediment. This layer is a thick Paleogene weathering crust (paleosol) that has developed within Permian sandstone. This paleosol has been largely modified by periglacial processes and development of ice wedges periodically during the Pleistocene. These deeply weathered sediments are unfossiliferous and characterized by the presence of weathering products like kaolinite and montmorillonite. Saalian sediments uncomfortably overlie this paleosol.

Baron Eduard von Toll and Dr. Kropotkin misreport this tree as being high. Other publications, i.e. Fingerprints of the Gods and Earth's Shifting Crust not only incorrectly state that this alder tree is high, but also they also repeat fictional claims from unreliable sources that this tree was either a "fruit tree" or "plum tree" and had "green leaves"and green fruit" still attached. Lacking modern radiocarbon dating techniques, Baron von Toll

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Vegetation

The vegetation of Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island is a mixture of rush/grass, forb, cryptogam tundra, cryptogam herb barren, and sedge/grass, moss wetland. The rush/grass, forb, cryptogam tundra covers the bulk of Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island. It consists mostly of very low-growing grasses, rushes, forbs, mosses, lichens, and liverworts. These plants typically cover about 40–80 percent of the surface of the ground. The soils are typically moist, fine-grained, and often hummocky. The cryptogam herb barren consists of dry to wet barren landscapes with scattered, herbs, lichens, mosses, and liverworts. Sedges, dwarf shrubs, and peaty mires are normally absent. These plants form a sparse (2–40%) and low-growing plant cover that often occurs as dark streaks on the otherwise barren lands, composed largely of bryophytes and cryptogamic crusts. Sedge/grass, moss wetlands, which occur on the northwest and southeast ends of Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island, consist of wetland complexes dominated by sedges, grasses, and mosses. These wetlands occupy low, perennially wet parts of the landscape.

See also

  • List of islands of Russia

References

  • 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.
  • anonymous, nda, aerial photographs of New Siberian Islands. Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
  • anonymous, ndb, aerial photograph of Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island. Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
  • Babinski, E.T., nd, A Frozen Ninety Foot Tall Plum Tree. examination of reports of a fossil plum tree being found in Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island of the New Siberian Islands.
  • Espinoza, E.O., and M.-J. Mann, 1993, The history and significance of the Schreger Pattern in Proboscidean ivory characterization. Journal for the American Institute for Conservation. vol. 32, no. 3, Article 3, pp. 241–248.
  • Kuznetsova, T.V., L.D. Sulerzhitsky, Ch. Siegert, 2001, New data on the "Mammoth" fauna of the Laptev Shelf Land (East Siberian Arctic), The World of Elephants – International Congress, Rome 2001. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Centro di Studio per il Quaternario e l'Evoluzione Ambientale, Università di Roma, Roma, Italy.
  • 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.