Franz Josef Land () is a Russian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. It is inhabited only by military personnel, and has never had a permanent population.

The Cold War produced renewed Soviet interest in the islands because of their strategic military significance. The islands were regarded as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier". The site of the former German weather station was selected as the location of a Soviet aerodrome and military base, Nagurskoye. With the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Soviet Union changed its military strategy in 1956, abolishing the strategic need for an airbase on the archipelago. The International Geophysical Year of 1957 and 1958 gave a new rise to the scientific interest in the archipelago and an airstrip was built on Heiss Island in 1956. The following year the geophysical Ernst Krenkel Observatory was established there. Activity at Tikhaya Bay was closed in 1959.

Because of the islands' military significance, the Soviet Union closed off the area to foreign researchers, although Soviet researchers carried out various expeditions, including in geophysics, studies of the ionosphere, marine biology, botany, ornithology, and glaciology. The Soviet Union opened up the archipelago for international activities from 1990, with foreigners having fairly straightforward access.

Recent history

thumb|upright=1.55|[[Nagurskoye (air base)|Nagurskoye is Russia's northernmost military base.]]

As part of the opening up of Franz Josef Land, the Institute of Geography in Moscow, Stockholm University and Umeå University (Sweden) conducted expeditions to Alexandra Land in August 1990 and August 1991, studying climate- and glacial history by radiocarbon dating raised beaches and antlers from extinct caribou. However, in August 2019, Russia abruptly withdrew its approval for a Norwegian cruise ship to visit the islands.

In 2012, the Russian Air Force decided to reopen the Graham Bell Airfield as part of a series of reopenings of air bases in the Arctic. A major new base, named the Arctic Trefoil for its three lobed structure, was constructed at Nagurskoye. It can maintain 150 soldiers for 18 months and has an area of 14,000 square meters, according to reporting by Radio Free Europe. The upgraded airbase is considered a threat to the U.S. military installation at Thule, Greenland.

In 2017, Russian president Vladimir Putin visited the archipelago.

In August 2019, a geographic expedition by the Russian Northern Fleet to Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya discovered a new island in the archipelago, previously thought to be a peninsula of Hall Island.

Geography

thumb|Cape Brice, Ziegler Island, Franz Josef Land.

The archipelago constitutes the northernmost part of Russia's Arkhangelsk Oblast, located between 79°46′ and 81°52′ north and 44°52′ and 62°25′ east. It is situated north of Novaya Zemlya and east of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. Located within the Arctic Ocean, Franz Josef Land constitutes the northeastern border of the Barents Sea and the northwestern border of the Kara Sea. The islands are from the North Pole and from the Yamal Peninsula, the closest point of the Eurasian mainland. The archipelago falls within varying definitions of the Asia–Europe border, and is therefore variously defined as part of Asia or of Europe. Cape Flighely, situated at 81°50′ north, is the northernmost point in Eurasia and the Eastern Hemisphere, and of either Europe or Asia, depending on the continental definition. It is the third-closest landmass to the North Pole.

thumb|[[Bell Island (Franz Josef Land)|Bell Island]]

The archipelago comprises 191 uninhabited islands with a combined area of . These stretch from east to west and from north to south. One can categorize the islands into three groups, a western, central and eastern, separated by the British Channel and the Austrian Strait. The central group is further divided into a northern and southern section by the Markham Strait. Graham Bell Island is separated from the eastern group by the Severo–Vostochnyi Strait. There are two named island clusters: Zichy Land north of Markham Sound; and Belaya Zemlya to the extreme northeast. The straits are narrow, between several hundred meters to wide. They reach depths of , below the shelf of the Barents Sea.

The largest island is Prince George Land, which measures . Three additional islands exceed in size: Wilczek Land, Graham Bell Island and Alexandra Land. Five more islands exceed : Hall Island, Salisbury Island, McClintock Island, Jackson Island and Hooker Island. The smallest 135 islands constitute 0.4 percent of the archipelago's area. The highest elevation is a peak on Wilczek Land, which rises above mean sea level. Victoria Island, located to the west of Alexandra Land, is administratively part of the archipelago, but the island is not geographically part of the island group and is closer to Svalbard, located from Kvitøya.

Geology

thumb|Cape Tegetthoff on [[Hall Island (Arctic)|Hall Island.]]

Geologically the archipelago is located on the northern edge of the Barents Sea Platform, within an area where Mesozoic sedimentary rocks are exposed. The area has four units separated by regional erosion surfaces. The Upper Paleozoic unit is poorly exposed and was created by folding during the Caledonian period. The Lower Mesozoic unit, consisting of coastal and marine sediments from the Upper Triassic period, is present on most islands and on the bottom of the straits and consists of limestones, shales, sandstones and conglomerate.

The Upper Mesozoic unit dominates in the southern and western parts, consisting of massive effusive rocks made up of basaltic sheets separated by volcanic ashes and tuffs, mixed with terrigenous rocks with layers of coal. The Mesozoic-Tertiary unit remains mostly on the sea floor and consist of marine quartz sandstones and shales. Plate tectonics of the Arctic Ocean created basalt lavas and dolerite sheets and dykes in the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous periods. The land is rising by per year, due to the melting of the Barents Sea Ice Sheet c. 10,000 years ago.

Hydrology

Franz Josef Land is dominated by glaciation, which covers an area of , or 85 percent of the archipelago. The glaciers have an average thickness of , which would convert to . This would alone give a eustatic rise in sea level should it melt. Large ice-free areas are only found on the largest islands, such as the Armitage Peninsula of George Land, the Kholmistyi Peninsula of Graham Bell Island, the Central'naya Susha of Alexandra Land, the Ganza Point of Wilczek Land and the Heyes Island. Most of the smaller islands are unglaciated.

thumb|Iceberg at [[Heiss Island in September 2007.]]

Streams only form during the runoff period from May through early September. Permafrost causes most of the runoff to take place on the surface, with streams only forming on the largest islands. The longest river is long and forms on George Land, while there are several streams on Alexandra Land, the longest being . There are about one thousand lakes in the archipelago, the majority of which are located on Alexandra Land and George Land. Most lakes are located in depressions caused by glacial erosion, in addition to a smaller number of lagoon lakes. Their sizes vary from to . Most are only deep, with the deepest measured at .

The sea currents surrounding the archipelago touch eastern Svalbard and northern Novaya Zemlya. The cold Makarov Current flows from the north and the Arctic Current flows from the northwest, while the warmer Novaya Zemlya Current flows from the south. The latter has temperatures over , while the bottom water lies below . The southern coastal regions of the archipelago experience currents from east to west. Average velocity is between per second. The tidal component in coastal areas is per second. Pack ice occurs throughout the year around the entire island group, with the lowest levels being during August and September. One-year winter ice starts forming in October and reaches a thickness of . Icebergs are common year-round.

Climate

thumb|Satellite image of Franz Josef Land from August 2011.

Franz Josef Land is in a transition zone between an ice cap climate (EF) and a tundra climate (ET), technically falling into the latter because July and August average above freezing, nevertheless, low temperatures remain below freezing year round. The main forces influencing the climate are the glaciation and sea ice. At 81° north the archipelago experiences 141 annual days of midnight sun, from 12 April to 30 August. During the winter it experiences 128 days of polar night from 19 October to 23 February. Abundant cloud cover further cools the climate. The sea starts to freeze in late September and reaches its annual maximum in March, at which time ninety-five percent of the sea is ice-covered. The ice coverage starts to decrease in May and experiences major melting in June, with the minimum occurring in August or early September.

During winter, high-pressure weather and clear skies cause radiation loss from the ground, sending temperatures down to . During shifts the temperatures can change by within hours. Coastal stations experience mean January temperatures of between and , varying heavily from year to year depending on the degree of cycles in weather patterns. During summer the temperatures are a lot more even and average at between and at Hayes Island. Fog is most common during the summer. Average annual precipitation at the coastal stations is between , with the wettest months being from July through September. Elevated areas can experience considerably higher precipitation. Franz Josef Land is significantly colder than Spitsbergen, which experiences warmer winter averages, but is warmer than the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

Nature

thumb|[[Papaver radicatum|Arctic poppy on Heiss Island]]

The climate and permafrost limits soil development in the archipelago. Large areas are devoid of soil, with permafrost polygons being the most common site for soil to occur. The soil typically has incomplete soil profiles and polygonal form with rich content of iron and is either neutral or slightly acidic. The brown upper humus layers have three percent organic matter, increasing to eight percent in the southernmost islands. Arctic desert soils occur on the eastern group islands, while the areas near the edge of the glaciers have bog-like arctic soil.

The flora varies between islands, based on the natural conditions. On some islands, vegetation is limited to lichen growing on stones. Vegetation typically covers five to ten percent of the ground surface, with notable exceptions under bird colonies where it can reach one hundred percent. Vegetation varies with the altitude: up to there is a belt of grass-moss arctic desert, then moss-lichen arctic desert to , then lichen arctic desert up to and above lifeless snow desert, with occasional lichens on nunataks and snow algae on glacier surfaces.

thumb|left|[[Northbrook Island]]

Trees, shrubs and tall plants cannot survive. About 150 species of bryophytes dominate the grassy turf, of which two-thirds are mosses and a third liverworts. The most common species are Aulacomnium, Ditrichum, Drepanocladus, Orthothecium and Tomenthypnum. More than 100 species of lichen are found on the island, the most common being Caloplaca, Lecanora, Lecidea, Ochrolechia and Rinodina. There are sixteen species of grass and about 100 species of algae, most commonly Cyanophyta and Diatomea. Fifty-seven species of vascular plants have been reported. The most common are Arctic poppy and saxifraga, which grow everywhere, independent of habitat, with the latter's nine species being found on all islands. Common plants in wet areas are Alopecurus magellanicus (alpine meadow-foxtail grass), buttercups and polar willow. Alopecurus magellanicus and Papaver dahlianum are the tallest plants, able to reach heights of .

More than one hundred taxa of single-cell pelagic algae<!--MOS:SOB: already linked--> have been identified around the archipelago, the most common being Thalassiosira antarctica and Chaetoceros decipiens. The bloom takes place between May and August. Of the roughly fifty species of zooplankton, calanoids dominate, with Calanus glacialis and Calanus hyperboreus constituting the greater portion of the biomass. On the sea bottom there are 34 species of macroalgae and at least 500 species of macrofauna. Most common are crustaceans such as amphipods and shrimps, polychaetes and echinoderms, such as sea bristles. The ice scouring causes there to be little life in the littoral zone, but the sublittoral zone () is dominated by laminaria, most commonly Laminaria sachcharina, and red algae, such as Phycodrys rubens.

thumb|[[Walrus on Heiss Island]]

There are 33 species of fish in the waters, none of which are abundant or commercially exploitable. The most common are polar cod, which reach lengths of , and liparidae. There are no endemic species within the archipelago. Forty-one species of birds have been documented in the archipelago, of which fourteen breed. These are dominated by seabirds such as fulmar, kittiwake, Brünnich's guillemot, black guillemot and little auk are common throughout the archipelago, while seven other species prefer nesting on flat tundra: common eider, purple sandpiper, Arctic skua, glaucous gull, ivory gull, Arctic tern and snow bunting. Some ivory gulls, little auks and Brünnich's guillemots opt to spend the winter on the islands.

The polar bear population of Franz Josef Land lies within the Barents Sea subpopulation, which also includes polar bears inhabiting Svalbard and the western coast of Novaya Zemlya. In 2004, the Barents Sea subpopulation was estimated at 2,650. There is also a population of Arctic fox, which typically have their territories near seabird habitats.

There are no caribou living on Franz Josef Land today. However, radiocarbon dating of shed antlers found on Alexandra Land in 1990 has shown that there was a population of caribou living on the island around 4000 to 2000 years ago. It is likely that the population died out when the climate became colder.

Marine mammals

As a declared marine mammal sanctuary, the area around the islands has a rich biodiversity of rare marine mammals.

Three species of seals habit the archipelago. Harp seal is the most common, although it breeds in the White Sea. Slightly less common is the bearded seal. Walruses were previously hunted, dramatically reducing the formerly abundant species. They have been internationally protected since 1952 and their numbers have since been on the rise, with between one and three thousand walruses living in the archipelago. The population is common with Svalbard and northern Novaya Zemlya.

Minke whales, humpback whale, and beluga whales are commonly seen around the island, and less commonly orcas and narwhales, with the archipelago being located on the northern edge of their summer range. Fin whales were recently confirmed to migrate into the waters.

Occasionally there are sightings of bowhead whale. The Russian Arctic stock of this species, ranging from Cape Farewell in Greenland and Svalbard/Spitsbergen areas to East Siberian Sea is considered to be the most endangered of all bowhead populations in the world. The waters around Franz Josef Land appear to be the most important place for this stock.

Human activity

thumb|Polar Geophysical Observatory on Heiss Island

Tourism travel to the archipelago is severely limited. There is no infrastructure to support tourists and the only way to reach the islands is by icebreaker, typically operating out of Murmansk. Franz Josef Land has never been inhabited by an indigenous population. In 2012 there were only eight successful landings on the islands. A contributing factor to the low utilization is the difficulty of obtaining permissions and frequent closing of the Kola Bay to accommodate military exercises. The most frequent service is a three-week North Pole tour with Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy, which stops by the islands en route. The most popular destinations are areas with bird cliffs and walrus colonies, such as Cape Flora on Northbrook Island and Cape Rubini on Hooker Island, as well as historical remains such as Nansen's hut on Jackson Island. Tourists are commonly landed by helicopter. For purposes of amateur radio awards the islands count as a separate international entity. Activity by radio operators has become less frequent, though it does occasionally occur. Nagurskoye Air Base is located on the Northern part of Alexandra Land. It was extensively upgraded in the mid-2010s to support a greater military presence.

See also

  • Barents Sea
  • List of islands of Russia
  • Svalbard

Notes

References

Bibliography

  • Franz Josef Land. Map and description on Google Earth.