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Severnaya Zemlya (, ''Northern Land'') is an archipelago in the Russian high Arctic. It is located off mainland Siberia's Taymyr Peninsula across the Vilkitsky Strait. This archipelago separates two marginal seas of the Arctic Ocean, the Kara Sea in the west and the Laptev Sea in the east. Severnaya Zemlya was first noted in 1913 and first charted in 1930–32, making it the last archipelago on Earth to be discovered. Politically, they are part of Russia's Krasnoyarsk Krai region, but are uninhabited by humans except for an Arctic base. Severnaya Zemlya is notable in connection with the ongoing multi-year Arctic sea ice decline. Until recently, the islands were a portion of Eurasia which remained firmly within the grip of the ice even at its smallest extent during the late summer melt season, blocking the Northeast Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific. By the late summer of 2012, however, the permanent ice had reached a record low extent and open water appeared to the north of the archipelago.〔http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/arctic-seaice-2012.html Retrieved on 27 August 2012〕 ==History== Although located not far off the northern coast of Russia, Severnaya Zemlya was not formally recorded until the 20th century. Earlier explorers did report a land mass in the general areas, most notably a report by Matvei Gedenschtrom and Yakov Sannikov in 1810 from their explorations out of New Siberian Islands. Nested among the ice-locked waters of the Arctic Ocean, Severnaya Zemlya was not put on the map until the 1913–1915 Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition of icebreakers ''Taimyr'' and ''Vaigach''. The chief designer and the first captain of Vaygach was Russian Imperial Naval officer Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak. The expedition, organized by Kolchak and launched in 1910, was led by Boris Vilkitsky. This venture accomplished its goal of exploring the uncharted areas of the Northern Sea Route in what was seen as the culmination of an enterprise initially conceived by emperor Peter I the Great to map the Northern Sea Route to the East. On 3 September 1913 (22 August 1913 in the Julian calendar used by Russia at the time), the expedition raised the Russian flag on what they believed to be a single island. This new land was named ''Emperor Nicholas II Land'', (Russian: ''Zemlya Imperatora Nikolaya II''), after Emperor Nicholas II of Russia.〔(Oil of Russia : www.oilru.com : "Oil of Russia" magazine ). www.oilru.com. Retrieved on 19 October 2010.〕 However, in 1926 the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR renamed this land ''Severnaya Zemlya''. On 15 May 1928 the islands were overflown by Umberto Nobile and his crew in the Airship Italia. In the spring of 1931 the expedition of Georgy Ushakov and Nikolay Urvantsev (1930–1932) showed Severnaya Zemlya to be divided by four main islands, making the first detailed map of the archipelago during this expedition.〔 The ''Graf Zeppelin'', during its polar flight of July 1931, determined there were at least two islands (a full month after Ushakov and Urvantsev). The islands of Severnaya Zemlya continued to be studied by a team of geologists from NIIGA (the Scientific Research Institute of Arctic Geology) in St. Petersburg under B. Kh. Egiazarov from 1948 to 1954, who compiled a comprehensive geological map.〔(GEO_099_121.pdf ). (PDF) . Retrieved on 19 October 2010.〕 There has been a request at the Krasnoyarsk Krai Legislative Assembly to reinstate the former name of Severnaya Zemlya as "Emperor Nicholas II Land". This request has been rejected for the time being.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Severnaya Zemlya」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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