Bennett Island

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Bennett Island is the westernmost island of the De Long group.

Bennett Island (Russian: Остров Бе́ннетта, Ostrov Bennetta) is the largest of the islands of the De Long group in the northern part of the East Siberian Sea. Area: approx. 150 km² (60 sq mi). The highest point of the island is 426 m (1,398 ft). It is covered with glaciers.

Bennett Island is part of the Sakha Republic administrative division of Russia.

Bennett Island consists of Early Paleozoic, late Cretaceous, Pliocene, and Quaternary sedimentary and igneous rocks. The oldest rocks outcropping on Bennett island are moderately tilted marine Cambrian to Ordovician sedimentary rocks. They consist of an approximately 500-meter-thick sequence of argillites with minor amounts of siltstone, and limestone that contain Middle Cambrian trilobites and 1000-1200 m of Ordovician argillites, siltstones, and quartz sandstones that contain graptolites. These Paleozoic rocks are overlain by Late Cretacecous coal-bearing argillites and quartzite-like sandstones and basaltic lava and tuff with lenses of tuffaceous argillite. The Late Cretaceous strata is overlain by basaltic lavas ranging in age from Pliocene to Quaternary. The Quaternary volcanic rocks form volcanic cones (Kos'ko et al. 1990, Kos'ko 1992, Kos'ko and Trufanov 2002)

Rush/grass, forb, cryptogam tundra covers the Bennett 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).

[edit] History

Bennett Island was discovered by American explorer George Washington DeLong in 1881 and named after James Gordon Bennett, Jr., who had financed the expedition. DeLong set out in 1879 aboard the Jeannette, hoping to reach Wrangel Island and to discover open seas in the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole. However, the ship entered an ice pack near Herald Island in September 1879 and became trapped. The vessel was crushed by the ice and sank in June 1881. At that point the party was forced to trek over the ice on foot, discovering Bennett Island in July 1881. They remained on the island for several days before setting out again for the New Siberian Islands and the mainland of Siberia.

In August 1901 Russian ship Zarya sailed on an expedition searching for the legendary Sannikov Land (Zemlya Sannikova) but was soon blocked by floating pack ice. During 1902 the attempts to reach Sannikov Land continued while Zarya was trapped in fast ice. Russian explorer Baron Eduard Toll and three companions vanished forever in November 1902 while travelling away from Bennett Island towards the south on loose ice floes.

In 1916 the Russian ambassador in London issued an official notice to the effect that the Imperial government considered Bennett, along with other Arctic islands, integral parts of the Russian Empire. This territorial claim was later maintained by the Soviet Union.

Some U.S. individuals assert American ownership of Bennett Island based on the 1881 landing. A resolution of the Alaska State Senate in 1988 supported this claim. However, the United States government has never claimed Bennett Island, and recognizes it as Russian territory. In 1994, the Alaska State Supreme Court ruled in D. Denardo v. State of Alaska that Bennett Island, along with several islands, is not part of Alaska.

[edit] References

Anonymous, 1923, “Wrangel Island. The Geographical Journal, Vol. 62, No. 6. pp. 440-444 (Dec., 1923). (requires JSTOR access).
William Barr, 1980, Baron Eduard von Toll's Last Expedition: The Russian Polar Expedition, 1900-1903. Arctic. vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 201-224.
Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, US State Department, 2003, Status of Wrangel and other Arctic islands Last visited May 26, 2008.
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.
Kos’ko, M.K., 1992, Major tectonic interpretations and constraints for the New Siberian Islands region, Russia Arctic. 1992 Proceedings International Conference on Arctic Margins, International Conference on Arctic Margins, US Marine Management Service, Alaska Region, Anchorage, Alaska, pp. 195-200.
Kos’ko, M.K., and G.V. Trufanov, 2002, Middle Cretaceous to Eopleistocene Sequences on the New Siberian Islands: an approach to interpret offshore seismic. Marine and Petroleum Geology. vol. 19, no. 7, pp. 901–919.
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.
Naval Historical Center, 2003a, Jeannette Arctic Expedition, 1879-1881 — Overview and Selected Images. Last visited May 26, 2008.
Naval Historical Center, 2003b, A Lengthy Deployment: The Jeannette Expedition in Arctic Waters as Described in Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Navy, 1880-1884 Last visited May 26, 2008.