The Laptev Sea is a marginal sea of ​​the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the northern shores of Siberia in the south, the Taimyr Peninsula, the Severnaya Zemlya Islands in the west and the New Siberian Islands in the east, and got its name in honor of Russian polar explorers, cousins ​​Dmitry and Khariton Laptev. The harsh northern sea has a difficult history of its exploration and establishment of precise boundaries.

Geographical position

The area of ​​the Laptev Sea is 672 thousand square meters. km. largest river, flowing into the Laptev Sea - Lena with its large delta. Rivers also flow into the sea: Khatanga, Anabar, Olenyok, Yana.

By type of location, the Laptev Sea is marginal. The neighboring sea is the Kara Sea, with which the Laptev Sea is connected by the Vilkitsky Strait, as well as the East Siberian Sea, with which it is connected by the Sannikov and Dmitry Laptev Straits.

Rice. 1. Laptev Sea on the map

The coastline is strongly indented and forms bays and bays of various sizes. The coastal landscape is varied, with low mountains. Major bays:

• Khatanga;
• Oleneksky;
• Thaddeus;
• Jansky;
• Anabar;
• bay of Maria Pronchishcheva;
• Ebelyakh Bay;
• Bay of Buor-Khaya.

Bottom relief

The maximum depth is 3385 meters, the average depth is 540 meters. More than half of the sea is occupied by a gently sloping continental shelf. Where the shelf is located, the average depth is about 50 meters. In the northern part of the sea, the bottom abruptly breaks off to the ocean bed with depths of the order of one kilometer. In shallow areas, the bottom is covered with sand and silt mixed with pebbles and boulders. At great depths, the bottom is covered with silt.

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The main characteristic of the Laptev Sea is the low water temperature. IN winter period Under the ice, the water temperature ranges from -0.8 °C in the southeastern part to -1.8 °C. Above a depth of 100 meters, the entire layer of water has negative temperatures (up to -1.8 ° C). In summer, the nature of the temperature distribution of surface waters is largely related to the position of the ice edge, which determines the area of ​​the sea subject to summer heating.

The salinity of the Laptev Sea increases rapidly with depth. This indicator is strongly influenced by:

• melting ice;
• stock Siberian rivers.

Due to relatively weak winds and shallow depths, the Laptev Sea is relatively calm, with waves usually within 1 m. In July-August, waves up to 4-5 m high can be observed in the open sea, and in autumn they can reach 6 m.

Rice. 2. The Laptev Sea is almost always covered in ice

Frosty Arctic winters cause significant formation sea ​​ice, which covers the sea for almost the entire year. The development of ice is also facilitated by the shallowness of the sea and the low salinity of its surface waters. As a result, the Laptev Sea is the largest source of Arctic sea ice.

Despite the freezing of the sea, navigation is the main human activity in the region, and one of the major ports is Tiksi.

Rice. 3. Port of Tiksi

Biological resources of the Laptev Sea

Features of the organic world of the Laptev Sea are due to its extremely harsh climate. The vegetation of the sea is represented by diatoms and a small amount of green and blue-green algae. There are also about 30 species of zooplankton in the sea. The flora of the coast is represented by mosses, lichens and several species of flowering plants.

Mammals constantly live here: walrus, sea hare, seal, harp seal, arctic fox, reindeer, wolf, ermine, polar hare and polar bear.

Despite the extremely harsh climate, several dozen species of birds live on the sea coast. Some of them are sedentary and live here permanently (bunting, snowy owl, black goose), while others roam the polar regions or migrate from the south, creating large colonies on the islands and the coast of the mainland (razorbill, white and polar gull, murre).

To the main environmental issues The Laptev Seas include:

• pollution from numerous factories and mines;
• periodic oil spills;
• sunken and floating decaying wood.

What have we learned?

According to the plan for the 8th grade of the geography course, we learned which ocean basin the Laptev Sea belongs to, whether it is marginal or inland, who discovered and after whom this northern sea is named. Briefly describe it, it is a shallow, not too salty sea of ​​the Arctic Ocean, with a harsh climate, which is covered with ice almost all year round.

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

The neighboring Kara Sea, with which the Laptev Sea is connected 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 Russian navigators and northern explorers 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 Nordenskiöld.

The area of ​​the sea is 672 thousand square meters. 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 has a length of 1300 km and is quite indented. Because of this, there are many bays and bays on the coast. The main bays: Olenksky, Khatanga, Faddey.

The climate here is arctic continental and very severe. For more than nine months a year, the temperature is below zero degrees Celsius. And only for two months, August and September, the sea is freed from the ice that binds 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. The polar night and day last for 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 herding, fishing, and hunting. And this is despite the fact that the local flora and fauna are very scarce. There are 39 species of fish in the Laptev Sea, the main of which are char, omul, whitefish, sturgeon, vendace, nelma and sea animal - seal, walrus, beluga. On the islands and the coast - a 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 been preserved 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. Laptev sea.

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

The Laptev Sea belongs to the group of marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean. It is 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 is named after Russian explorers and cousins ​​Khariton and Dmitry Laptev. They mastered this inhospitable region in the first half of the 18th century. Before that, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the reservoir was called the Arctic, the Siberian, the Lena, or the Tatar Sea. In 1883, the well-known Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen proposed another name - the Nordenskiold Sea in honor of the Swedish geographer and geologist Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld.

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

Borders of the Laptev Sea

In the west, the reservoir is limited by the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago. The northernmost point is the Arctic Cape on Komsomolets Island. The Novosibirsk Islands are considered to be the eastern border, with the northernmost point on Kotelny Island, Cape Anisy. Eastern border ends at Cape Svyatoy Nos and further west along the coast of the mainland to the Taimyr Peninsula.

Coastline

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

In the region of the southwestern coast there are such islands as Maly and Bolshoi Begichev, Preobrazhensky Island, Peschany Island, Psov Island, and the Peter Islands. 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 islands are destroyed and disappear.

Sea bottom

More than half of the seabed is a continental shelf with a depth of no more than 60 meters. IN southern regions there are places where the depth corresponds to 25-30 meters. In the northern part of the reservoir, the bottom abruptly breaks down 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 averages 2 km.

The Laptev Sea is characterized by low temperature regimes. They range from -1.8 degrees Celsius in the north to -0.8 degrees Celsius in the southeastern part. The temperature of the middle layers of water is 1.5 degrees Celsius. At a depth temperature regime colder and reaches -0.8 degrees Celsius. In the summer months, the water warms 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 affected by ice melt and river runoff. In winter, salinity in the southern regions is 20-25 ppm, and in the north it reaches 34 ppm. In summer, respectively, it decreases by 10% and 32%.

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

The tides are semidiurnal with an average amplitude of 0.5 meters. In the Khatanga Bay, they reach 2 meters. Seasonal fluctuations in the water level are 40 cm. The winds are weak, so the height of the waves usually does not exceed 1 meter. In summer, in the central regions of the sea, there 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 an 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 a 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 to 24 degrees Celsius. The maximum summer temperature regime recorded in Tiksi was 32 degrees Celsius. However, in foggy weather, snow can fall in summer, and snowstorms and storms are characteristic of winter.

At sea, although weakly, shipping is 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 cruising the Laptev Sea. The ships moved in a caravan behind the icebreaker. They transported timber, furs, and 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 slightly polluted. The negative impact is exerted by enterprises located on the banks of the Lena, Anabar, Yana rivers. It is from them that phenols, zinc, copper get into sea water. The administrative center of Tiksi also contributes to the pollution. A source of pollution is also rotting wood that enters the sea as a result of timber rafting. All this causes a high concentration of phenol.

Laptev sea- marginal sea of ​​the Arctic Ocean. The surface area of ​​the sea is 662,000 km². located between north coast Siberia in the south, the Taimyr Peninsula, the Severnaya Zemlya Islands in the west and the New Siberian Islands in the east. Historical names: Tatar, Lena (on the maps of the XVI-XVII centuries), Siberian, Arctic (XVIII-XIX centuries). In 1883, the polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen named the sea after the Nordenskjöld. This name remained with him until 1935. In 1913, at the suggestion of the oceanographer Yu.M. Officially, it was fixed only by the decision of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of June 27, 1935. In the language of the indigenous people, the Yakuts, the name sounds like Laptevtar.

The coast is heavily indented. Large bays: Khatanga, Oleneksky, Faddey, Yansky, Anabarsky, Maria Pronchishcheva Bay, Buor-Khaya. There are several dozens of islands in the western part of the sea and river deltas. Frequent storms and currents due to ice melting lead to their strong erosion, for example, Semenovsky and Vasilyevsky Islands, discovered in 1815, have already disappeared. The most significant groups of islands: Severnaya Zemlya, Komsomolskaya Pravda and Thaddeus. The largest single islands: Bolshoy Begichev (1764 km²), Belkovsky (500 km²), Maly Taimyr (250 km²), Stolbovoy (170 km²), Starokadomsky Island (110 km²), and Sandy (17 km²). The islands of Komsomolskaya Pravda are located in the southwestern part of the sea. Rivers flow into the sea: Khatanga, Anabar, Olenyok, Lena, Yana. Some rivers form large deltas.

seafaring

The coast of the Laptev Sea has long been inhabited by aboriginal tribes of northern Siberia, such as the Yukagirs and Chuvans. The traditional occupations of these tribes were fishing, hunting, nomadic reindeer herding, and hunting for wild deer. Starting from the 2nd century, the gradual assimilation of the Yukaghirs by Evens and Evenks began, and from the 9th century by much more numerous Yakuts, and later by Koryaks and Chukchis. Russians began to explore the coast of the Laptev Sea and nearby islands around the 17th century, rafting down the Siberian rivers. In 1629, the Siberian Cossacks descended the Lena to the mouth. In 1633, Ivan Perfiryev's detachment set off from Zhigansk down the Lena, then half of the detachment led by Ivan Rebrov reached the mouth of the Olenyok River, and Perfiriev himself went to Yana. By 1638, the Khatanga River was discovered and industrialists from the Lena climbed it, dragged along inland waters Taimyr to Pyasina and hunted on the banks of the Yenisei. In 1735, Lieutenant Vasily Pronchishchev sailed from the Lena to the mouth of the Anabar and to the eastern coast of Taimyr on the Yakutsk dubelt boat. After the death of Pronchishchev from scurvy in 1736, his work on Yakutsk was continued by Khariton Laptev, whose cousin Dmitry Laptev in 1739 sailed on the Irkutsk boat from the mouth of the Lena to the east to the mouth of the Khroma River, which flows into the East Siberian Sea. The strait between two seas bears the name of Dmitry Laptev. And the Siberian Sea itself is named after the Laptevs, since they were the first to map its shores.

Navigation in the Laptev Sea became possible thanks to the work (1821-1823) of Lieutenant Peter Anzhu, who described the coast of the mainland and all the New Siberian Islands, which he traveled on sleds in search of the never-found Sannikov Land. Anjou conducted the first studies of the prevailing winds of the Laptev Sea, its mobile and pack ice. He made measurements of the depths, moving either on the water in a boat, or on the ice in a sled.

The first who managed to sail across the entire Laptev Sea from Cape Chelyuskin in the west to Cape Svyatoy Nos in the east was the Swedish Baron Adolf Eric Nordenskiöld. On August 19, 1875, his sailing-steam vessel "Vega", accompanied by the steamer "Lena", anchored at Cape Chelyuskin, on August 27 reached the mouth of the Lena, where the "Lena" went to Yakutsk. On August 30, Vega was in the Dmitry Laptev Strait off the coast of Bolshoi Lyakhovsky Island. In 1893, the Norwegian research schooner "Fram" by Fridtjof Nansen passed almost the entire Laptev Sea, which was frozen into ice near the New Siberian Islands, from where its drift to the north began.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian expeditions crossed the sea several times on the icebreaking ships Taimyr and Vaigach. Since 1932, the Northern Sea Route has been running through the Laptev Sea, regular flights since 1935. Here, the shortest navigation period on the entire Northern Sea Route is only in August and September. The base port is Tiksi, there are also ports at the mouths of the rivers - Khatanga, Ust-Olenyok, Nizhneyansk.

Bottom relief

The Laptev Sea is located in the zone of the shelf, the continental slope and occupies a small area of ​​the ocean floor. In connection with this arrangement, the bottom topography is a plain, which abruptly breaks off in the north. Depths up to 50 m prevail, the greatest depth is 3385 meters, the average depth is 540 meters. In shallow areas, the bottom is covered with sand and silt mixed with pebbles and boulders. Near the banks, river precipitation accumulates at a high rate, up to 20-25 centimeters per year. At great depths, the bottom is covered with silt.

Climate and hydrological regime

The climate of the Laptev Sea is arctic continental and, due to its remoteness from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is one of the most severe among the Arctic seas. Polar night and polar day last about 3 months a year in the south and 5 months in the north. The coldest month is January. The average temperature in January is up to -31°C and -34°C, while the minimum is -50°C. In July, the temperature rises to 0 °C +5 °C, however, it can reach +22-24 °C on the coast in August. Strong winds, blizzards and snowstorms are common in winter. Snow falls even in summer and alternates with fogs.

The sea is characterized by low water temperature. In winter, under the ice, the water temperature ranges from −0.8°C to 1.8°C. In summer, in ice-free areas of the sea, the uppermost layer of water can warm up to 4-6°C, in bays up to 8-10°C. The salinity of sea water at the surface in the northwestern part of the sea in winter is 34 ‰, in the southern part - up to 20-25 ‰. Near the mouths of rivers, it is less than 10 ‰. The salinity of surface waters is strongly influenced by the melting of ice and the runoff of Siberian rivers. Most of the river runoff (about 70%) falls on the Lena. Other rivers that make a significant contribution to the total runoff are Khatanga, Olenyok, Yana and Anabar. Tides are on average up to 50 centimeters high. The magnitude of the tides is significantly reduced by the ice cover. In the Khatanga Bay, due to its funnel-shaped form, the tidal wave can reach 2 meters. Due to relatively weak winds and shallow depths, the Laptev Sea is relatively calm, with waves usually within 1 meter. In July-August, waves up to 4-5 m high can be observed in the open sea, and in autumn they can reach 6 meters.

The frosty winters of the Arctic cause significant formation of sea ice, which covers the sea for almost the entire year. The development of ice is also facilitated by the shallowness of the sea and the low salinity of its surface waters. The Laptev Sea is the largest source of Arctic sea ice.

Flora and fauna

Flora and fauna are scarce due to the harsh climate. The vegetation of the sea is represented mainly by diatoms, of which there are more than 100 species. In the sea, 39 species of fish have been recorded, most of them typical of the brackish water environment. The main ones are various types of graylings and whitefish, such as muksun, whitefish, and omul. Sardine, Bering Sea omul, polar smelt, navaga, arctic cod, flounder, arctic char and nelma are also common. Mammals constantly live here: walrus, sea hare, seal, harp seal, lemming, arctic fox, reindeer, wolf, ermine, polar hare and polar bear. Beluga whales make seasonal migrations to the coast.

Several dozen species of birds live here. Some of them are settled and live here permanently. These are snow bunting, sea sandpiper, snowy owl and black goose. There are also those who roam the polar regions or migrate from the south, creating large colonies on the islands and the coast of the mainland. These include the auk, common gull, ivory gull, murre, charadriiformes, and polar gull. Also found are skuas, terns, fulmar, glaucous gull, pink gull, long-tailed duck, eiders, loons and ptarmigan. In 1985, the Ust-Lena Nature Reserve was organized in the delta of the Lena River. In 1993, all the islands of the Novosibirsk archipelago were also included in its buffer zone.

Economic importance

The Laptev Sea is the only Russian sea where there is not a single inhabited island with a permanent population, excluding polar stations and military installations. Hunting and fishing are not widespread and are concentrated mainly in river deltas. Hunting for marine mammals is practiced only by indigenous people. In particular, walrus hunting is allowed only to scientific expeditions and local tribes who need it for their existence. The Northern Sea Route is the most important way to deliver goods to remote regions of Russia - the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Yakutia and Chukotka. The Laptev Sea is a place for various scientific research. Scientists study how water circulates, monitor the ice balance, and make hydrometeorological forecasts.

Ecology

Water pollution is relatively low and is mainly due to the operation of numerous factories and mines located on the Lena, Yana and Anabar rivers. The wastes of these enterprises contain phenols, copper and zinc and are constantly washed into the sea with the flow of river waters. Another constant source of pollution is the urban-type settlement of Tiksi. During the period of navigation, as well as in the process of oil production, its periodic spills occur. Another major source of pollution is sunken and floating decaying wood that has been exposed to the water as a result of decades of continuous rafting.