Koldewey Island

Koldewey Island
	Koldewey between Hall and Salm
Waters	Arctic Ocean
Archipelago	Franz Josef Land
Geographical location	80 ° 8 ′ 0 ″ N , 59 ° 9 ′ 21 ″ E Coordinates: 80 ° 8 ′ 0 ″ N , 59 ° 9 ′ 21 ″ E
length	4.5 km
width	3 km
surface	6.67 km²
Highest elevation	Carl-Christian ; 66 m
Residents	uninhabited

The Koldewey Island ( Russian остров Кольдевея , Ostrow Koldeweja ) is an island in the south of the Franz Josef Land in the Arctic Ocean, which belongs to Russia .

geography

The island belongs to the southeastern group of the archipelago and is relatively flat at 66 m compared to its larger neighbors, the Salm , Hall and Hochstetter islands . The island has no standing water. In summer, however, a stream flows from east to west through the main valley of the island. To the northwest, a steep promontory juts out into Lavrov Street . In front of it is the small Schönau Island, characterized by its rugged column structure . To the southwest, a long, flat cape merges into an undersea ridge, which stretches for another 12 kilometers to a shoal, the highest point of which is less than two meters below sea level. The 5.5 km wide strait between Koldewey Island and Salm Island, on the other hand, is around 200 m deep.

Unlike Salm Island, which is almost completely covered by an ice cap , Koldewey Island is not glaciated . Since June 15, 2009, like the entire Franz Josef Land archipelago, it has been part of the “Russian Arctic” National Park .

history

The island was discovered in 1874 by the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition led by Carl Weyprecht and Julius Payer . Payer, who took part in the Second German North Pole Expedition to East Greenland in 1869/70 , named it after its leader, Carl Koldewey . On March 29, 1874, he climbed the highest mountain on the island to map the area. The expedition members met a polar bear who had her winter cave in a snow slope below the rock.

literature

Julius Payer: The Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition in the years 1872–1874, together with a sketch of the second German North Pole expedition 1869–1870 and the polar expedition of 1871 , Alfred Hölder, Vienna 1876.

Web links

Topographic map U-40-XXXIV, XXXV, XXXVI (scale 1: 200,000)