Belkovsky Island

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Belkovsky Island (Бельковский остров in Russian) is an island in the New Siberian Islands archipelago in the Laptev Sea. It is a part of the Sakha. Area: approx. 500 km². The highest point of the island is 120 m. There are big bird colonies and a walrus rookery on the island.

Belkovsky Island consist of tightly folded Upper Devonian and Lower Carboniferous strata. The Upper Devonian rocks are clayey marine carbonates interbedded with limestone, sandstone, and conglomerate. The Lower Carboniferous rocks are composed of siltstone, argillite, and sandstone interbedded with breccia, limestone, and infrequent rhyolitic lavas (Fujita and Cook 1990, Kos'ko et al. 1990).

Rush/grass, forb, cryptogam tundra covers the Belkovsky Island. It is tundra consisting mostly of very low-growing grasses, rushes, forbs, mosses, lichens, and liverworts. These plants either mostly or completely cover the surface of the ground. The soils are typically moist, fine-grained, and often hummocky (CAVM Team 2003).

The island was discovered in 1808 by a Russian merchant named Belkov.

Coordinates: 75°33′09″N, 135°50′28″E

[edit] References

• CAVM Team, 2003, [Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map]. Scale 1:7,500,000. Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) Map No. 1. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Anchorage, Alaska.
• Fujita, K., and D.B. Cook, 1990, The Arctic continental margin of eastern Siberia, in A. Grantz, L. Johnson, and J. F. Sweeney, eds., pp. 289-304, The Arctic Ocean Region. Geology of North America, vol L, Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado.
• Kos’ko, M.K., B.G. Lopatin, and V.G. Ganelin, 1990, Major geological features of the islands of the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas and the Northern Coast of Chukotka. Marine Geology. vol. 93, pp. 349–367.

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