Economic activity of the East Siberian Sea. East Siberian Sea in Russia
He is called the most severe among all northern seas located on close distance from warm waters Atlantic Ocean. The East Siberian Sea, washing the northern coast of Russia in the East, with all its shallow water, literally freezes.
The sea, marginal to the Arctic Ocean, is located along northern shores Eastern Siberia between the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island, conditionally administrative shores belong to Yakutia and Chukotka autonomous region. Most of it is outlined by conditional lines, and only from the side adjacent to Russia, nature has created its own borders. The total area of the sea is quite large: 944,600 sq. km, provided that you cannot call it deep (the average is 54 m).
The borders are considered to be at the points of intersection of the meridian with the islands of Kotelny, Wrangel and capes Anisy, Blossom, Yakan and Svyatoy Nos. There are practically no islands here, all coastline it is deeply incised into the land or protrudes from the sea and forms large bends, small meanders lead to the mouths of the rivers.
As for the nature of the coastline, the eastern one is not at all like the western one. So, in the area of the New Siberian Islands and the mouth of the Kolyma, there is a tundra dotted with swamps, the relief is quite gentle and low, but closer to the island of Ayon, the coast takes on a mountainous landscape. Almost low mounds approach the banks of the water, in some places abruptly breaking off.
The underwater relief is flat and uniform throughout the territory. Only in some areas there is a depth of up to 25 m. Experts call them the remains of ancient river valleys.
Often this sea is called an important site trade route through which goods are transported to the northern regions of Eastern Siberia. Works here major port Pevek, he carries out transit movements from the West to the East of the country.
(Sea trade and transport port of Pevek)
The East Siberian Sea can hardly be called a fishing hub in Russia. For the most part, sea animals are harvested here in the waters adjacent to land. locals European smelt, capelin, cod and herring are caught here. Near the mouths of the rivers, valuable whitefish, sturgeon and salmon are caught. However, this type of activity does not make a serious economic contribution to the development of the country and the region.
This sea is located in the area Arctic Ocean, where the influence of the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean is no longer felt at all and the influence has not yet reached Pacific Ocean. It can be called the most severe northern sea.
Occupying an area of 936 thousand square kilometers, it is relatively shallow - its average depth does not reach 50 meters, and its maximum depth is 155 meters.
On the map of the Arctic Ocean, you can see the East Siberian Sea.
Depths that do not exceed the average occupy more than 70% of the sea area. From the west, it borders on the Laptev Sea, on the east - on the Chukchi Sea, on the north - on the Arctic basin of the ocean. The coastal zone of the southern part of the sea is not as strongly indented as that of neighboring seas, only a few flowing rivers, and bays diversify the coastline a little.
In the western part the coast is low, in the east (from the Kolyma River) it is mountainous, sometimes steep. The East Siberian Sea is rich in islands. Here are the Novosibirsk (on the border with the Laptev Sea) islands, Bear, Aion, Shalaurova. Many of these islands are made up of sand and fossil ice and are therefore subject to erosion.
From major rivers flowing into its waters should be noted Kolyma, Indigirka, Alazeya.
The tides are low, but wind drifts in bays and bays can reach 2 meters in height.
Climate East Siberian Sea arctic. Here, almost all year round, the air temperature is below zero, the surface of the sea is covered with drifting ice, the thickness of which can reach several meters. Only in its western part, during the warm season, a coastal strip of several tens of kilometers is formed, free from floating ice. In the east, ice covers the sea for almost the entire year.
Even if you find yourself in these parts in the summer, under the roof of some house, you involuntarily think of a warm fireplace - a saving and cozy source of heat in the most severe climatic conditions.
The bottom is formed by sandy, silty-sandy and silty deposits. In many places there are plateaus of fossil ice.
The severity of the climate could not but leave an imprint on the development of life in the waters of the East Siberian Sea. Only the most resistant to low temperatures forms of fauna and flora. However, the species composition differs little from the neighboring Laptev Sea, but the quantitative composition is somewhat poorer. All the same microscopic organisms and phytoalgae, mainly diatoms, occasionally in coastal zone in the western part of the sea, brown and red algae are found.
Bottom living creatures are also poorer than in neighboring seas. Here it is very rare to find some species of crustaceans, worms, coelenterates, echinoderms and molluscs.
Fish are represented by the indigenous inhabitants of the northern seas - European smelt, capelin, cod and herring, and some species of bottom fish. In the coastal zone at the mouths of the inflowing rivers, you can find valuable fish of the salmon, whitefish and sturgeon families, which come here from the rivers and do not move far to the north. Many islands are chosen by sea birds - bird colonies, typical of the coasts of the northern seas, are often found here.
Mammals are represented by beluga whales, seals, walruses and cetaceans, mainly minke whales. As in all coastal northern seas of Eurasia, walruses are harvested in the Kara Sea, but only for the needs local population, since walruses have been taken under state protection since 1956. present here and polar bear- a semi-marine mammal. On the shores, you can also meet smaller predators - arctic foxes, sea otters, who arrived for food.
There is no information about sharks living in the waters of the East Siberian Sea. It can be assumed that there is a frequenter of the Arctic waters here - a polar shark. This fish, reaching a length of 6 meters, almost never appears on the surface of the sea, preferring to stay in the middle layers of the water. According to its diet, the polar shark is a generalist. She can eat the smallest organisms, and fish trifles, and the remains of animals. It does not attack active prey, as it is itself an extremely slow predator, as, indeed, are most Arctic giants.
We can confidently say that bathers in the East Siberian Sea are not in danger of suffering from the teeth of man-eating sharks.
The largest share of the Arctic Ocean is occupied by the Arctic basin, by the nature of its bottom, half is shelf (the underwater margin of the mainland is called the shelf). The East Siberian Sea belongs precisely to its shelf half, and this determines a lot in it. Silt at its bottom is mixed with sand, crushed small stones, occasionally boulders are witnesses of the geological history of the sea. She continues. The bottom relief is almost even, with a slight slope from the southwest to the northeast, there are no seismic and volcanic centers, significant depressions or rises. Ideally, maps of the coasts of the East Siberian Sea should be corrected every year. The main part of the coast (in the west and in the center) is a swampy tundra, seized by permafrost. In recent decades, the permafrost layer has gradually become thinner and the coastline has changed its shape. The same applies to most of the islands, whose sandy soils are covered and punctuated by layers and fragments of fossil ice.
The most general characteristics location of the East Siberian Sea - between the New Siberian Islands and the island. Through the straits of Dmitry Laptev, Eterikan, Sannikov and the strait north of the island The boiler room (Anzhu archipelago) in the west is connected to the Laptev Sea, in the east - through the Long Strait - with. The conditional northern boundary coincides with the edge of the continental shelf. From the east, the boundary of the sea runs along the meridian of 180 ° east longitude to Wrangel Island, then - along the northwestern coast of this island to Cape Blossom and - along a conditional line connecting it with Cape Yakan on the Arctic coast of Chukotka. From the south, the coastal boundary of the sea extends from Cape Svyatoi Nos in the west to Cape Yakan.
Most the sea is covered with ice, navigation is possible from August to October. The direction of ice drift depends on cyclonic processes in the atmosphere, which affects both the speed and direction of currents. In winter, an area of high pressure develops near the pole, in addition, at western edge cyclones from the Atlantic penetrate the sea, although occasionally, not too often, but in its eastern regions from the Pacific Ocean, more often than the Atlantic. Plus, the spur of the Siberian maximum (an extensive anticyclone), which goes to the coast and carries cold air from the continent. In summer, ice drifts to the northwest at a speed of 3-8 km per day. The most ice-free space is formed by the end of summer in the western part of the sea, when the so-called Novosibirsk (named after the islands) fast ice in the eastern part melts. Ice separating from the Ayon Oceanic Ice Pack is held by eastern shores seas, as a rule, all summer, receding to the north only near the mouths of the rivers with their warmer waters.
The sea acquired its current name only in 1935 at the suggestion of the Russian geographical society. Prior to that, it was called either Indigirsky or Kolyma. Due to the harsh climate, the flora and fauna of the sea itself and the earth's firmament in its region are not very diverse and lag behind even the neighboring seas. And yet, at the end of summer (the warmest period in the tundra), even daisies appear along the banks of the rivers. Among the ice, polar bears prey on the walruses and seals that live here, herds of reindeer roam the tundra, arctic foxes run, guillemots, gulls, and cormorants nest on the rocks. In the mouths of the rivers there are omul, whitefish, white salmon, polar smelt, salmon char and nelma, and other species. At the same time, it should be noted that the waters of the sea and the rivers flowing into it are primordially clean, pollution that is not critical for environment, are noted in the area of the Pevek port, where there are no treatment facilities yet, and the Chaun Bay. 
As for the history of human settlement of the shores of this sea, all the information here is based mainly on the theoretical calculation of the migration routes of the ancestors of the Evens, Evenks, Yakuts and Chukchi. Fantastic figures are called up to 3 million years ago. But another figure seems to be more reliable, supported by archaeological finds in the mainland of Yakutia - about 10 thousand years ago. Although the question is, did these people get to the ocean in prehistoric times? This is indirectly confirmed cave drawings near Pevek, but their age has not yet been established.
Since the 17th century Kochi of Russian Cossacks went by sea. They were brave, experienced and gambling people, but also pragmatic, and they, of course, already knew something about the fur-bearing animals of these regions, and about placer deposits of gold and tin in Indigirka and Kolyma. There is a mythology that Pomors walked along " open water” off these shores as early as the 13th century, but accurate evidence of these events has not been preserved. Between the mouths of the Indigirka and the Kolyma, the Cossack Mikhailo Stadukhin was the first to sail in 1644 and founded the Nizhnekolymsky prison. In 1648, his assistant Semyon Dezhnev went from the mouth of the Kolyma and further through the Long Strait and to the Gulf of Anadyr, where he founded the city of Anadyr. The history of the discovery of the islands of the sea begins in 1712, when Mercury Vagin and Yakov Permyakov discovered the Big and Small Lyakhovsky Islands. During the Great Northern Expedition (1733-1743) the first maps of the sea were drawn up. In 1849, the Briton Henry Kellett discovered Wrangel Island (belonging to the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas) and named it after his ship - Herald. But in 1867, the American whaler Thomas Long gave him a different name: in honor of the Russian navigator Ferdinand Wrangel. Wrangel himself knew about the existence of the island from the Chukchi, but could not find it. The last of the archipelagos of the sea were the islands of de Long, as a result of the drift of the American schooner Jeannette with captain J. De Long. In 1878-1879, the Swede N. Nordenskiöld became the first navigator who, in 1875, managed to pass the Northern by sea along the entire coast of Asia (with one wintering). At the beginning of the XX century. the sea was studied by geologist K. A. Vollosovich (1900-1901) and hydrographer G. Ya. Sedov (1909), as well as a hydrographic expedition of the Arctic Ocean on the icebreakers Vaigach and Taimyr (1911-1915). For the first time in one navigation sea route(NSR) was passed by the expedition of O. Yu. Schmidt in 1932 on the icebreaker "Sibiryakov", transportation started in 1935 Modern period navigation is counted from 1978, from the beginning of the use of nuclear icebreakers of the Arktika series.
The first port of the East Siberian Sea was Ambarchik. In 1932, “enemies of the people”, mostly former “kulaks”, were brought here along the Kolyma from Vladivostok. In 1935, several thousand people already lived here, however, the word “lived” in this case is not entirely accurate, it was not a village, but a camp of Dalstroy, an industrial division of the Gulag. In 1935, the most important hydrometeorological station for monitoring this region of the Arctic was opened here. And a transit prison for the repressed. ... And here is the evidence of 2011. Six people live at the station, the port no longer exists, although ships sometimes anchor in the Ambarchik Bay. There are still some ruins of the Gulag era, entangled in rusty barbed wire, but the modest monument to the victims of repressions has not been abandoned. The port of Pevek was built in 1951, by the same forces, a city developed around it. But the economic cataclysms of the last 20 years have also affected him, work has become less and less, life is becoming more expensive, the city's infrastructure is getting worse. And, of course, people leave. However, Pevek still has prospects. First, it works in conjunction with the port Green Cape in Kolyma, which gives room for maneuver, secondly, it has deep-water berths, and most importantly, a program for the industrial development of Chukotka until 2020 has been adopted, and the development of significant gold deposits of Maiskoye and Kupol has begun.
general information
A sea in northeastern Russia, located entirely above the Arctic Circle, in the Arctic Basin of the Arctic Ocean.
Location: between the New Siberian Islands and Wrangel Island.
Major bays: Chaun Bay, Kolyma Bay, Omulyakh Bay.
Major flowing rivers: Kolyma, Indigirka, Alazeya, Big Chukochya.
Major islands: Novosibirsk, Bear, Aion Island.
The most important port: Pevek, 130 km from the mouth of the Kolyma, near the village of Chersky, is the port of Zeleny Mys.
Numbers
Area: 913,000 km2.
Volume: 49,000 km3.
Average depth:
54 m.
Water temperature in summer: from +4°С to +8°С (near river mouths), to 0°С and -1°С (in the open sea).
Water temperature in winter: from -1.2°C to -1.8°C.
Salinity: from 5-10% ° in the south to 30% ° in the north.
The area of water freshened by rivers is more than 36% of total area seas.
More than 70% of the sea basin has average depths (about 50 m).
Tides - up to 0.3 m, semi-diurnal.
annual runoff river waters:
about 250 km 3 .
Economy
Part of the Northern Sea Route.
Fishing in the mouths of rivers.
Fishing walrus, seal in the sea.
Climate and weather
Arctic.
January average temperature: 30°C.
July average temperature:+2°С.
Average annual rainfall: 200 mm.
Attractions
■ The Wrangel Island Nature Reserve, a World natural heritage UNESCO;
■ Pevek: Chaun district local history museum, rock paintings on the banks of the river Pegtylil;
■ Ambarchik: monument to the victims of repressions; in the bay Ambarchik - commemorative sign"Wind Rose" in honor of G.Ya. Sedov.
Curious facts
■ Kochs of Russian coast-dwellers were first described by the British in the 16th century. The bottom, as well as the cut bow and stern, saved these wooden ships from being squeezed by ice. Kochi XVI-XVII centuries. were about 20 m long and about 6 m wide on average, could carry up to 40 tons of cargo. During the day they covered 150-200 km, while the English ships - about 120 km. A small draft - up to 2 m - made it possible to transport the kochi by land or ice by dragging, to walk on them in shallow water. Design features kochey was first used by Fridtjof Nansen when creating his Fram, on which in 1893-1912. made three expeditions. Admiral S. O. Makarov, developing the design of the world's first icebreaker of the Arctic class "Ermak" in 1897, on the advice of Nansen, also applied the shipbuilding ideas of the Pomors. They are also used in modern icebreakers.
■ Passing Cape Stolbovaya on a rocky island near the Ambarchik Bay, all ships give a long horn when they see the three-meter metal sign "Wind Rose", installed in 1977 in memory of the polar explorer Georgy Yakovlevich Sedov (1877-1914). Sedov is one of the prototypes of Ivan Tatarinov in V. Kaverin's novel "Two Captains", along with Robert Scott, Georgy Brusilov and Vladimir Rusanov.
■ Pomors before going to sea always turned to him with a prayer, calling him "father". And they never talked about a comrade who died on a campaign, "drowned" or "died", only like this: "the sea took."
It is not so easy to immediately find the East Siberian Sea on the map. The fact is that its borders are conditional and only in some places are limited to land. In the western part, the Kotelny Island and the Laptev Sea serve as the limit; in the north - the edge of the shallows of the mainland; in the east, the border is the meridian, passing through the sea in the southern part is limited to the mainland.
Dimensions and depth
The maximum depth of the East Siberian Sea is 915 meters, and the average value of this indicator is 54 meters. In other words, this body of water is completely within the continental shelf. Its total area is 913 thousand m 2. As for the volume, it is approximately 49 thousand cubic kilometers.
coast
The East Siberian Sea has a coastline that is very different in its relief in the eastern and western parts. In its landscapes there are quite large bends that in some places protrude strongly into the depths, while in others they go far on land. In addition to them, straight sections are also quite common. In the mouths of rivers, small meanders are usually found. In the islands, the coastline is monotonous and low-lying. A similar situation is also characteristic of the mouth. In the southern part of the Long Strait, the shores are covered with a mixture of pebbles and sand, which separate the chains of lagoons.
It should be noted that the size of the depths in coastal regions is significantly affected by the amount of precipitation carried by the rivers. Under their influence, bars are also formed - alluvial shoals. Among other things, they increase the temperature of the water, resulting in thermal abrasion in the estuarine areas. Its speed is from one to fifteen meters per year.
bottom structure
The bed of the sea is formed by a shelf, the relief of which is mostly a plain. It slopes slightly to the northeast. In the western side is the so-called "area of shallow depths". She also formed the Novosibirsk shoal. As for more deep places, then they are typical for northeast region. A significant portion of the bottom here is covered with a sedimentary cover of small thickness. Many archipelagos and islands of the East Siberian Sea (of which there are not so many here) are formed precisely due to this foundation. These include Aion, Bearish, as well as New Siberian Islands. As shown by various aeromagnetic photographs, the composition bottom sediments The shelf mainly includes sandy silt, pebbles and crushed boulders. There is every reason to believe that some of them are fragments of some islands that were scattered by ice throughout the territory.
Climate
Many are interested in the question: "The East Siberian Sea - what kind of ocean is the water area?" Despite the fact that the reservoir belongs to the Arctic Ocean basin, it is also subject to atmospheric influence from the Pacific and Atlantic. The climate here is arctic. With him in winter time the average temperature is -30 degrees, and in summer - about +2. Most of the year the sea surface is covered with ice. Often in the eastern region floating ice located close to the coast even in the summer months.
The East Siberian Sea in winter is under the influence of southern and southwestern winds, the speed of which is about seven meters per second. They bring cold air from the continent. In summer, the pressure rises here, in connection with which the northern rhumbs begin to predominate among the winds. They are rather weak at the beginning of the season, but closer to the middle of the season, their power only increases, and the speed reaches 15 meters per second. At this time, the weather here is mostly cloudy with sleet or drizzling rain. Due to the fact that this reservoir is quite remote from the centers that are affected by the atmosphere, in autumn there is almost never a return of heat.
Water temperature and salinity
Throughout the year, the surface water temperature in the sea decreases from south to north. In winter, in the areas of river mouths, it is about -0.5 degrees, while in northern borders- about -1.8 degrees. In the summer it all depends ice conditions. At this time, the temperature in the bays reaches +8 degrees, in ice-free areas it is about +3 degrees, and at the ice edge it averages zero degrees. In spring and winter, the change in water temperature as you dive is negligible. IN summer time closer to the bottom, the water becomes colder, especially in the western region.
The level of salinity in the sea varies with northeast direction. In spring and winter, it ranges from 4 ppm near the Indigirka and Kolyma rivers to 32 ppm in the central and northern regions. In summer, the melting of ice and a significant influx of river waters lead to the fact that this figure decreases. It should also be noted that the salinity level of the water does not increase much closer to the seabed. As for such an indicator, it is the highest in the autumn-winter period. In addition, it grows as you dive deeper.
Hydrology
The East Siberian Sea is characterized by not very high river runoff compared to other representatives of the Arctic Ocean basin. The largest of the rivers that flows into it is the Kolyma. Its stock is approximately 132 cubic kilometers in year. The second in terms of this value is the Indigirka River, which brings half as much water over the same period. At the same time, even in conditions of relatively large sizes, coastal runoff has little effect on the general hydrological situation. At present, the system of currents in this sea is not very thoroughly studied. It can be confidently stated that the general water circulation here is characterized by a cyclonic character. As for precipitation, their average annual value ranges from 100 to 200 millimeters. Due to the fact that there are no deep trenches here, and a significant area is shallow water, the Arctic surface water take up a lot of space.
tides
The sea is characterized by semi-diurnal regular tides, which are caused by a wave moving towards the continental coast from the north. They are best expressed in the northwestern and northern regions, while weakening in southbound. This can be explained by the fact that the tidal wave is damped in shallow water. For example, while in the area from Shelagsky Cape to the level fluctuations are almost imperceptible, at its mouth the relief and configuration of the coasts lead to an increase in tides by about 25 centimeters. The highest water level is typical for June-July, because at this time the largest river inflow. In winter, the level gradually decreases and in March reaches its minimum value.
Flora and fauna
The resources of the East Siberian Sea, namely flora and fauna, are rather poor. First of all, this is due to the harsh conditions created here by nature itself, so only those that turned out to be the most resistant to low temperatures took root here. Quite large schools of white fish are often found in the regions of river mouths. Omul, grayling, whitefish, navaga, polar flounder, cod and others are also found here. Representatives of mammals here are polar bears, seals and walruses. As for birds, cormorants, sea gulls and guillemots can be noted here. It is possible that a polar shark, reaching six meters in length, also lives in local waters, but no clear evidence of this has yet been found.
Sea problems
The problems of the East Siberian Sea are in many respects similar to the problems of other northern seas, for example, the Barents, Kara, White and others. In this case, we are talking primarily about the environmental component. Despite the fact that the water here is relatively clean, Europeans have been destroying local biological resources especially whales. Over time, this led to a significant reduction in their number and even to the extinction of some species. It should be noted that there is another problem that Lately has become global. It's about who suffers local fauna. Among other things, human activity associated with the development of oil and gas fields also negatively affects the state of the water area.
Economic situation
In 1935 they started regular flights ships along the so-called route through the East Siberian Sea. At the same time, one cannot help but focus on the fact that the navigation season here lasts only three months - it starts at the end of July and ends at the beginning of November. At the same time, navigation is allowed only at this time and in the coastal strip.
