Schmidt Island
Schmidt Island | ||
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Location of the island (in the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago ) |
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Waters | Arctic Ocean | |
Archipelago | Severnaya Zemlya | |
Geographical location | 81 ° 5 ′ N , 90 ° 25 ′ E | |
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length | 26 km | |
width | 18 km | |
surface | 467 km² | |
Highest elevation | Schmidt ice cap 325 m |
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Residents | uninhabited |
The Schmidt Island ( Russian Остров Шмидта , Ostrow SmithA ) belongs to the archipelago Severnaya Zemlya in the Russian Arctic .
The approximately 467 km² island is located in the northwest of the archipelago. It is almost completely covered by an ice cap and is named after the Russian scientist Otto Juljewitsch Schmidt , the leader of the expedition that discovered the island in 1930 on board the icebreaker Georgi Sedov .
In 1952, during the Cold War , a Soviet air force base was established here, which would have allowed modified Tupolev Tu-4 bombers to attack US bases in Canada and Greenland with nuclear weapons .
literature
- Evgeny Pospelow: Geografitscheskie naswanija Rossii . AST, 2008, p. 501. ISBN 978-5-17-054966-5 . (Russian)
Web links
- Article Schmidt-Insel in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE) , 3rd edition 1969–1978 (Russian)
- topographic map on a scale of 1: 500,000