Which ocean basin belongs to the Laptev Sea. Laptev Sea: description and characteristics, islands and map, rivers flowing into

The Laptev Sea is a peripheral or marginal sea of ​​the Arctic Ocean, which is located near the northern shores of Russia, in Asia. In the west, it is bounded by the Taimyr Peninsula and the Severnaya Zemlya Islands, in the east - by the Novosibirsk Islands.

The neighboring sea is the Kara, the Laptev Sea is connected with it by the Vilkitsky Strait, as well as the East Siberian Sea, with which it is connected by the Sannikov and Dmitry Laptev straits. The Laptev Sea is named after the Russian navigators and explorers of the north, Khariton and Dmitry Laptev, who explored this harsh territory back in the 18th century. In the language of the indigenous people, the Yakuts, the name sounds like Laptevtar. One of the previous names is Nordenskjold.

Sea area - 672 thousand. km sq.

The prevailing depths are 30 - 80 m.

The average depth is 540 m.

The greatest depth is 3385 m.

Geographic coordinates - 76 ° 16'07 "N. 125 ° 38'23 "E

The salinity of the water is low.

The coastline is 1,300 km long and is quite indented. Because of this, there are many bays and bays on the coast. The main bays: Olenksky, Khatangsky, Thaddeya.

The climate here is arctic continental and very harsh. For more than nine months, the temperature is kept below zero degrees Celsius for a year. And only for two months, August and September, the sea is freed from the ice that bound it. The water temperature in summer in the south is from +12 to + 15 °, in the north from +1 to + 6 °. In winter, the water temperature under the ice is -1.5 ° C. Polar night and day last more than three months each. The air temperature in January reaches -50 ° С, and in July it rarely reaches + 5 ° С

The density of the indigenous population (Yukaghirs, Chuvans, Evenks and Evens) is very low. Their traditional occupations are reindeer husbandry, fishing, hunting. And this is despite the fact that the local flora and fauna are very scarce. There are 39 fish species in the Laptev Sea, the main ones of which are char, omul, whitefish, sturgeon, vendace, nelma and sea animals - seal, walrus, beluga. On the islands and the coast - polar bear, arctic fox.

On the territory of the sea there are a couple of dozen islands, on which the remains of mammoths were found, which have survived in good condition. The largest port village is Tiksi.

The following rivers flow into the Laptev Sea: Lena, Anabar, Khatanga, Olenk, Yana and other smaller rivers.

Today, the main human activity in this region is navigation and mining.

Video: Tiksi. Laptevih sea.

Group "Lips" - The Laptev Sea (Reggae with Adriano Celentano. Comedy Club

Laptev Sea, the marginal sea of ​​the Arctic Ocean, off the northeastern coasts of Asia, between the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, the Taimyr Peninsula, the coast of Siberia and the Novosibirsk Islands. It is communicated through the straits with the seas: in the west with the Kara, in the east with the East Siberian. The western border runs from Cape Arctic (northern point of Komsomolets Island) along the eastern shores of the islands of the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago and the straits of the Red Army, Shokalsky, Vilkitsky, then along the eastern coasts of the Taimyr Peninsula to the mouth of the Khatanga; southern - further along the mainland coast to Cape Svyatoy Nos (141 ° east longitude); eastern - along the Dmitry Laptev Strait, the western coast of the Bolshoi Lyakhovsky Island, the Eterikan Strait, the western coast of the Maly Lyakhovsky Island, the Sannikov Strait, the western coast of Kotelny Island to Cape Anisy, then in the open sea along the meridian 139 ° East to the parallel of 79 ° North latitude; north - from this point in an arc large circle to Cape Arctic. Within these boundaries, the area of ​​the Laptev Sea is 662 thousand km 2, the volume is 353 thousand km 3. The greatest depth is 3385 m (79 ° 35 'north latitude, 124 ° 40' east longitude).

The heavily indented shores of the Laptev Sea form many bays, bays, peninsulas. Large bays - Khatangsky, Anabarsky, Oleneksky, Yansky, Faddeya; bays - Pronchishchevoy, Kozhevnikova, Nordvik, Tiksi; lips - Buor-Khaya, Vankina, Sellakhskaya, Ebelyakhskaya; peninsulas - Khara-Tumus, Nordvik, Shirokostan. There are several dozen islands (mostly small) located off the western and southern shores; most large islands- Bolshoi Begichev, Maly Taimyr, Starokadomsky, Belkovsky, Stolbovoy; group of islands - Thaddea, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Petra, Danube. Lots of small islands located in estuaries and deltas of rivers. The nature of the shores is varied, abrasion, accumulative prevail; large areas of the coasts are covered with fossil ice, they are subject to intense erosion; thus, the islands of Vasilievsky and Semyonovsky, discovered in 1815, were completely eroded and by the mid-1950s turned into sand banks with the same names. The coasts are mostly low-lying, but in some areas low mountains come close to the coastline.

Topography and geological structure of the bottom... The bottom of the Laptev Sea is represented by a plain, slightly dissected by several trenches, gently descending from south to north. The sea is shallow, about half of the bottom is located at depths less than 50 m, the shelf (along the 200 m isobath) occupies 72%. The continental slope is cut by a deep-water trench Sadko, which passes to the north into the Nansen Basin. Areas with depths of more than 2000 m (northwestern part of the sea) account for only 13%. A large, shallow part of the Laptev Sea is located in the area of ​​junction of the Taimyr, Verkhoyansk-Kolyma and Novosibirsk-Chukotka fold systems, the Mesozoic complexes of which are dissected by a branched Cenozoic rift system of northwestern striking and covered by a cover of Upper Cretaceous - Cenozoic sediments with a thickness of 1-1.5 km uplifts up to 8-12 km in troughs. In the northern, deep-water part of the sea, the sedimentary cover overlies the magmatic rocks of the oceanic crust. Modern bottom sediments on the shelf are represented by sands, silty silt, sometimes with inclusions of pebbles and boulders; in deep-water areas, mostly silty-clayey and clayey silts are observed at the bottom. The sedimentation of coastal areas is significantly influenced by solid river runoff. Lena and Yana alone annually bring up to 17.5 million tons of suspended sediment to the southeastern part of the sea. Eastern The Laptev Sea is seismically active (earthquakes with a magnitude of up to 6 occur); there is an increased seismicity of the coast.

Climate... The climate is arctic maritime, with signs of continental in the southern coastal regions; its high-latitude position, the proximity of the mainland, isolation from the softening influence of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans determine its severity. The polar night lasts from three to five months. For most of the year, the sea is under the influence of the Siberian High, which causes weak cyclonic activity and monsoon wind conditions. V winter time southern and southwestern winds prevail at a speed of 8-10 m / s, the air is greatly cooled, the temperature in January drops to -34 ° С, the absolute minimum was -61 ° С. In the summer, mostly north winds(speed 3-4 m / s), air temperature in July from 0 ° С to northern borders up to 4 ° С off the southern coasts. In small bays well protected from the wind, the air warms up to 12-15 ° C in summer, the maximum temperatures in summer reach 22-24 ° C, the minimum ones drop to -4 ° C.

Hydrological regime. Many small and several large rivers flow into the Laptev Sea; therefore, fresh runoff has a noticeable effect on the hydrological regime of the shallow sea. One of the largest rivers of the Arctic Ocean basin - Lena annually brings 520 km 3 of water, Khatanga - 105 km 3, Olenek - 38 km 3, Yana - 31.5 km 3. In total, the Laptev Sea receives over 700 km 3 of fresh water annually, or over 30% of the river flow of the Arctic basin. The runoff is unevenly distributed over the seasons of the year: in January about 36 km 3 (over 5% of the annual value) flows into the sea, and in August up to 290 km 3 (over 40%) of water. In coastal areas with a strong influence of river runoff, strongly desalinated water is formed in the surface layer in summer, when salinity drops to 10 ‰ in the Lena estuary area. Salinity increases northward and northwestward, reaching 31 ‰ at Cape Arctic. The water temperature on the surface at this time varies from 4 to -1 ° C, respectively. In winter, salinity everywhere noticeably increases due to a decrease in freshwater runoff and salinization of the surface layer in the process of ice formation: in the Tiksi area up to 15 ‰, near the Arctic Cape up to 33 ‰. The water temperature on the surface in winter is everywhere close to the freezing point and is determined by the salinity of the water; it varies from -1 to -1.8 ° C, respectively. With depth, the temperature quickly decreases and deeper than 15-20 m, even in summer, it takes negative values ​​everywhere. Only in deep-water areas, in the 100-300 m layer, the water temperature is above 0 ° C due to the warming effect of the intermediate Atlantic waters.

The sea is covered with ice for most of the year. The ice-forming season lasts from 7-8 months in the south to 9-11 months in the north. In cold years, ice can form in all seasons, in very warm years in late August - early September, the sea is completely ice-free. Vast coastal areas, especially in the southeastern part, are covered with fixed fast ice in winter.

Usually the width of the fast ice is determined by the isobath of 25 m, therefore, in the Laptev Sea, fast ice can occupy up to 30% of the water area. In the rest of the sea, the ice is drifting. By the end of winter, fast ice and drifting ice can (in one season) grow in thickness up to 1.8-2.0 m. The concentration of drifting ice strongly depends on the prevailing winds. Sustainable winds from the eastern points often drive away drifting ice from fast ice, creating even in the most severe frosts a space of open water - the so-called pre-ice wormwood. Such a phenomenon in the past was called the Great Siberian Polynya. With the cessation of the action of the eastern winds, the ice clearing is quickly covered with young ice.

Due to weak winds in summer and high ice concentration in winter, wind mixing is poorly developed and usually does not penetrate deeper than 8-10 m. Autumn-winter cooling and ice formation contribute to the development of convective mixing, which in shallow water southern regions by the end of winter it penetrates to the bottom, and in the north - to a depth of 90-100 m. The horizontal circulation is mainly cyclonic. Along the mainland coast, the stream moves from west to east. Near the Novosibirsk Islands, most of the flow goes north in the form of the Novosibirsk Current, where it splits into two branches: one turns east into the East Siberian Sea, the other goes west. Near Severnaya Zemlya, the current deviates to the south and, under the name of the East Taimyr Current, closes the cycle.

The tides are of an irregular semidiurnal character, the height is 0.3-0.8 m. Only at the top of the funnel of the Khatanga Bay, during the syzygy, the tide exceeds 2 m. Up the Khatanga, the tidal wave penetrates 200-300 km. Surge-surging level fluctuations usually do not exceed 2.0-2.5 m. Seasonal level fluctuations are small, observed mainly only in the southeastern regions, where they reach 0.4 m (the minimum level is observed in winter, the maximum - in summer). The prevailing excitement is 2-4 points with a wave height of about 1 m. In the central part of the sea during autumn storms with a force of 5-7 points, the height of waves reaches 4-5 m, their maximum height is 6 m.

Research history. Russian explorers of the Laptevs have known the Sea since the first half of the 17th century. The traces of a Pomor artel found on the shores of the Taimyr Peninsula indicate that the Russians entered the Laptev Sea no later than 1620. In 1633-34, the explorers Ilya Perfilyev and II Rebrov, descending the Lena, discovered Olenek Bay, the mouth of the Olenek River, Yanskiy Bay, and the mouth of the Yana River. The first surveys of the shores of the Laptev Sea from the mouth of the Lena to the northern shores of Taimyr were carried out in 1735-36 by Lieutenant V.V. Pronchishchev. Former names of the sea - Siberian, from the end of the 19th century - Nordenskjold, established in 1935 modern name in honor of naval officers, participants of the 2nd Kamchatka expedition V. I. Bering, cousins ​​D. Ya. Laptev and Kh. P. Laptev, who completed surveys of its mainland coasts and made the first reliable map of this area. The New Siberian Islands were discovered by Siberian hunters in 1712-1812. The first reliable maps of the islands were made by the government expedition of Lieutenant PF Anjou in 1821-23. The Severnaya Zemlya archipelago was discovered in 1913 by the Arctic Ocean hydrographic expedition, led by senior lieutenant B.A.Vilkitsky. The map of the coasts of Severnaya Zemlya was compiled by G. A. Ushakov's expedition in 1930-32.

Household use. The Laptev Sea is characterized as an area of ​​weak economic use. Fishing is of local importance. Among the commercial ones are Arctic char, Siberian whitefish, omul, nelma, sturgeon, vendace, muksun. Mammals are represented by walruses, seals, and beluga whales. Polar bears breed on the islands. On the banks there are white foxes and lemmings. The world of birds is diverse, especially in bird colonies where guillemots and guillemots nest; species of gulls, skuas are numerous; common snowy owl, etc.

The Laptev Sea is part of the Northern Sea Route. The main port is Tiksi, where river-sea cargo is transshipped. Timber, building materials, furs, foodstuffs prevail in cargo transportation. Sea cargo transportation is carried out under icebreaker assistance. The Laptev Sea is promising in terms of oil and gas content, but its development is difficult due to the harsh natural conditions.

Ecological situation. In general, the ecological situation in the Laptev Sea is characterized as favorable due to the poor economic use of this area. The shallow parts of the sea are slightly polluted, as a result of which eutrophication of bays, bays, coastal areas of the sea is noted; a decrease in the size of aquatic organisms is observed.

Lit .: Dobrovolsky A.D., Zalogin B.S. of the Sea of ​​the USSR. M., 1982; Atlas of the Arctic. M., 1985; Tectonic map of the Kara and Laptev seas and the north of Siberia / Edited by N. A. Bogdanov, V. E. Khain. M., 1998; Zalogin B.S., Kosarev A.N. M., 1999; Geoecology of the shelf and coast of the seas of Russia / Edited by N. A. Aibulatov. M., 2001.

The Laptev Sea belongs to the group of marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean. Located between Severnaya Zemlya and the New Siberian Islands. The area of ​​the reservoir is about 678 thousand square meters. km. The volume of water reaches 363 thousand cubic meters. km. The average depth is 578 meters, and the maximum corresponds to 3385 meters. The climate in these places is arctic, the salinity of the water is low, the ice cover lasts most of the year and only partially recedes in late summer and early autumn. The large Siberian river Lena flows into the reservoir.

origin of name

The sea was named in honor of Russian explorers and cousins ​​Khariton and Dmitry Laptev. They mastered this inhospitable region in the first half of the 18th century. Prior to that, in the XVII and XVIII centuries the reservoir was called either the Arctic, the Siberian, or the Lenskoye, or the Tatar Sea. In 1883, the famous Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen proposed another name - the Nordenskjold Sea in honor of the Swedish geographer and geologist Adolf Erik Nordenskjold.

This name lasted until the beginning of the 20th century, when the Russian Geographical Society approved the modern name, and the archipelago in the Kara Sea was named after the famous Swede. The official decision on this issue was made by the Soviet government in the summer of 1935.

Laptev Sea on the map

The boundaries of the Laptev Sea

In the west, the reservoir is bounded by the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. The northernmost point is the Arctic Cape on the Komsomolets Island. The eastern border is the New Siberian Islands with the northernmost point on Kotelny Island, Cape Anisiy. The eastern border ends at Cape Svyatoy Nos and further west along the mainland coast to the Taimyr Peninsula.

Coastline

The Lena River flowing into the Laptev Sea forms a vast delta. In addition, such rivers as Yana, Khatanga, Olenek, Anabar flow into the reservoir. The coastline is rugged with a length of 1300 km. It has many bays and coves. The most eastern is the Ebellyakh Bay (the bay is a bay that flows far into the land, into which the river, as a rule, flows). Further to the west are Sellakhskaya Bay, Yansky Bay, Buor-Khaya Bay, Oleneksky Bay, Anabar Bay, Nordvik Bay, and the westernmost is Khatanga Bay.

Near southwest coast there are such skeletons as Small and Big Begichev, Preobrazhensky Island, Sandy Island, Psov Island, Petra Island. All in all, close coastline there are several dozen islands, and their total area is 3.8 thousand square meters. km. As a result of erosion, some of the islands collapse and disappear.

Sea bottom

More than half of the seabed is a continental shelf with a depth of no more than 60 meters. In the southern regions there are places where the depth corresponds to 25-30 meters. In the northern part of the reservoir, the bottom drops abruptly and the depth reaches 1 km or more. The maximum depth of 3385 meters was recorded in the northern part of the sea in the Nansen Basin, where the water column corresponds to an average of 2 km.

The Laptev Sea is characterized by low temperature regimes. They vary from -1.8 degrees Celsius in the north to -0.8 degrees Celsius in the southeastern part. The temperature of the middle layers of the water is 1.5 degrees Celsius. At depth, the temperature regime is colder and reaches -0.8 degrees Celsius. In the summer months, the water is warmed up by the sun in the bays up to 8-10 degrees Celsius and up to 2-3 degrees Celsius in the open sea.

The salinity of sea water is largely influenced by ice melting and river runoff. In winter, salinity in the southern regions is 20-25 ppm, and in the north it reaches 34 ppm. In summer, it decreases by 10% and 32%, respectively.

70% of the total river runoff (515 thousand cubic km) comes from the Lena River. And the river flow of all rivers flowing into the reservoir under consideration reaches 730 thousand cubic meters. km. Due to ice melting, 90% of the runoff occurs in June-September, and in January this figure is only 5%.

Semi-daily tides with an average amplitude of 0.5 meters. In Khatanga Bay, they reach 2 meters. Seasonal fluctuations in water level are 40 cm. Winds are weak, so the wave height usually does not exceed 1 meter. In the summer central regions the seas are waves 4-5 meters high, and in autumn they can reach 6 meters in height.

Climate

The Laptev Sea is remote from both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, so the arctic climate prevails. The polar night lasts 3 months a year in the south and 5 months in the north. The air temperature is below 0 degrees 11 months of the year in the north and 9 months in the south. The average January temperature is -32 degrees Celsius, and the minimum is -50 degrees Celsius.

In summer, the temperature in the south rises to 10 degrees Celsius. On the coast, it can rise up to 24 degrees Celsius. The maximum summer temperature recorded in Tiksi was 32 degrees Celsius. However, in foggy weather, snow can fall in summer, and winter is characterized by blizzards and storms.

At sea, although it is weak, shipping is well developed, and the main seaport is Tiksi. In the 30s of the last century, the Main Directorate of the Northern Sea Routes was created, which was in charge of the ships plying the Laptev Sea. The ships moved in a caravan after the icebreaker. They transported timber, furs, various building materials. Today, the northern route is used to deliver goods to the northern regions of Russia.

Ecology

The reservoir under consideration is considered to be slightly polluted. Enterprises located on the banks of the Lena, Anabar, and Yana rivers have a negative impact. It is from them that phenols, zinc, and copper get into the sea water. The administrative center of Tiksi also contributes to the pollution. Rotting wood that gets into the sea as a result of timber rafting is also a source of pollution. All this causes a high concentration of phenol.

Located between the Taimyr Peninsula and the Severnaya Zemlya Islands in the west and the Novosibirsk Islands in the east.

Area 662,000 sq.

Depths up to 50 m prevail, the maximum depth is 3385 m.

Large bays: Khatangsky, Oleneksky, Faddeya, Yansky, Anabarsky, Maria Pronchishcheva Bay, Buor-Khaya. There are many islands in the western part of the sea.
The Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands are located in the southwestern part of the sea.
The rivers flow into the sea: Khatanga, Anabar, Olenek, Lena, Yana.
The main port is Tiksi.

Most of the year (October to May) Laptevih sea covered with ice. Ice formation begins at the end of September and takes place simultaneously throughout the sea. In winter, in its shallow eastern part, an extensive fast ice with a thickness of up to 2 m is developed. The boundary of the fast ice distribution is a depth of approximately 25 m, which in this area of ​​the sea is removed several hundred kilometers from the coast. The fast ice area is about 30% of the entire sea area. In the western and northwestern parts of the sea, landfast ice is small, and in some winters it is completely absent. Drifting ice is located to the north of the fast ice zone.

The average air temperature in January is about –30 ° С, in the coastal part there are frosts down to –60 ° С. Most of the year is covered with ice; along the coast there is a wide fast ice, to the north the Siberian polynya stretches, to the east of the Vilkitsky Strait the Taimyr ice massif is preserved. Salinity from 10 (or less) in the south to 34 ‰ in the north; semi-daily tides, up to 0.5 m.
V Laptevih sea well pronounced hot flashes, which have an irregular semi-daily character everywhere. The tidal wave enters from the north from the Central Arctic Basin, fading and deforming as it travels south. The magnitude of the tide is usually small, mainly about 0.5 m. Only in Khatanga Bay, the range of tidal level fluctuations exceeds 2 m in syzygy. Other rivers flowing into Laptevih sea, the tide hardly sets. It attenuates very close to the estuaries, since the tidal wave is extinguished in the deltas of these rivers.

Fauna and flora of the Laptev Sea

are typically arctic. Phytoplankton is represented by marine diatoms and freshened diatoms. The most widespread species of zooplankton here are planktonic marine ciliates, rotifers, copepods and amphipods. Benthic organisms include foraminifera, polychaete worms, isopods, bryozoans, and molluscs. Fish are represented by Siberian whitefish, arctic char, omul, nelma, sturgeon, etc.

Mammals include walruses, seals and beluga whales, sea hares, and seals; bird colonies on the banks; there are many commercial fish: char, muksun, nelma, taimen, perch, sturgeon, sterlet. Polar bears live on ice islands and large ice fields in the open sea. Colonies of sea gulls live near the coasts.