Henrietta Island
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Henrietta Island | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Geography | |
| Location | Arctic Ocean |
| Coordinates | Coordinates: |
| Archipelago | De Long Islands |
| Area | 12 km² |
| Highest point | unnamed 315 m (1,033 ft) |
| Administration | |
 Russia |
|
| Federal Subject | Sakha Republic |
| Demographics | |
| Population | 0 |
| Density | 0/km² |
Henrietta Island (Russian: Остров Генриетты, Ostrov Genriyetty) is one of the islands of the De Long Islands archipelago in the East Siberian Sea. It was discovered in 1881 by the Jeannette expedition under George W. DeLong. Henrietta Island is the northernmost of the group and 40% of the island is covered with glaciers. It is roughly circular in shape and its diameter is about 6 km.
Henrietta Island consists of folded Middle Paleozoic basaltic lava and proximal volcanogenic turbidites overlain by Cenozoic clastic sedimentary rocks. The Paleozoic strata have been intruded by numerous sills, dikes, and sheets of basalts, andesite-basalts, and porphyritic diorite. The basalts and porphyritic diorite have been dated by potassium–argon dating method to be about 310-450 million years old and the porphyritic diorite has been dated by the argon–argon dating method to be about 400-440 million years old. Gritstones that are part of the Cenozoic clastic sedimentary rocks contain fragments of underlying Paleozoic strata along with significantly older gneisses, granites, quartzites, and schists (Vinogradov et al. 1975, 2006, Kos'ko and Trufanov 2002).
[edit] History
American explorer and US Navy Lieutenant Commander George Washington 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 drifted several hundred miles with the ice, passing north of Wrangel Island. In May of 1881 it approached Jeannette Island and Henrietta Island. According to The Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy, for the Year 1882 (pg.16), "A sled party landed, hoisted the national ensign, and took possession in the name of the United States."[1] The excursion, led by George W. Melville, landed on June 2 or 3, constructed a cairn, and placed inside it a record of their visit.
During the 1914-15 during the Imperial Russian Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition led by Boris Vilkitsky, the Vaygach approached Jeannette Island with the intention of mapping Jeannette and Henrietta Islands, but heavy ice blocked the approach. In 1916 the Russian ambassador in London issued an official notice to the effect that the Imperial government considered Henrietta, along with other Arctic islands, integral parts of the Russian Empire. This territorial claim was later maintained by the Soviet Union.
A Soviet polar station was established on Henrietta Island in 1937, and closed in 1963. Henrietta Island served in 1979 as the starting point for a Soviet expedition to the North Pole on skis.
Some U.S. individuals assert American ownership of Henrietta Island based on the 1881 discovery and claim. A resolution of the Alaska State Senate in 1988 supported this claim. However, according to the U.S. Department of State in 2003, the U.S. government has never claimed Henrietta Island. In 1994, the Alaska State Supreme Court ruled in D. Denardo v. State of Alaska that Henrietta Island, along with several islands, is not part of Alaska.
[edit] Physical description
The sled party from the De Long expedition described Henrietta Island: "The island is a desolate rock, surmounted by a snow-cap, which feeds several discharging glaciers on its east face. Dovekies nesting in the face of the rock are the only signs of game. A little moss, some grass, and a handful of rock were brought back as trophies. The cliffs are inaccessible, because of their steepness." (DeLong journals, p. 565)
[edit] References
- Anonymous, 1923, Wrangel Island. The Geographical Journal, Vol. 62, No. 6. pp. 440-444 (Dec., 1923). (requires JSTOR access).
- Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, US State Department, 2003, Status of Wrangel and other Arctic islands Last visited May 26, 2008.
- Headland, R.K., 1994, OSTROVA DE-LONGA ('De Long Islands'). Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University. Lasted visited May 26, 2008.
- 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.
- Naval Historical Center, 2003a, 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.
- Naval Historical Center, 2003b, Jeannette Arctic Expedition, 1879-1881 — Overview and Selected Images. Last visited May 26, 2008
- De Long, Emma, ed., 1883, The Voyage Of The Jeannette: The Ship And Ice Journals Of George W. De Long, Volume II Houghton Mifflin And Company. Last visited May 26, 2008 at the Internet Archive).
- Starokadomski, L.M. and O.M. Cattley, 1919, Vilkitski's North-East Passage, 1914-15. The Geographical Journal. vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 367-375 (December, 1919). (requires JSTOR access).
- Vinogradov, V.A., G.I. Kameneva, and G.P. Yavshits, 1975, About the Hyperborean platform in view of the new data on geological structure the Henrietta island. Arctic tectonics. vol. 1, Leningrad, USSR.
- Vinogradov V.A., E.A. Gusev, and B.G. Lopatin, 2006, Structure of the Russian Eastern Arctic Shelf in R.A. Scott and D.K. Thurston, eds., p. 90-98, Proceedings of the Fourth International conference on Arctic margins, OCS study MMS no. 2006-003, Mineral Management Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Anchorage, Alaska.
- 25 лет с Северным полюсом!, a description of the 1979 polar ski trek from the Adventure Club (Russian). Last visited May 26, 2008.
