Anabar River

Anabar River
Origin Anabar Plateau
Mouth Laptev Sea
Basin countries Russia
Length 939 km (583 mi)
Avg. discharge 498 m³/s
Basin area 100,000 km²

The Anabar River (Russian: Анабар) is a river in Sakha, Russia, located just west of the Lena River. Its catchment extends into the Putoran Mountains that form the highest part of the Central Siberian Plateau.

Its mean annual discharge is approximately 500 cubic metres per second, concentrated heavily in early summer when the ice that covers the river for most of the year thaws. The Gulf of Anabar is believed to be the easternmost fjord in Russia - defining the point at which the climate during the Last Glacial Maximum became too dry for glaciers to form - one notices a quite clear transition from fjords to deltas at river mouths when the Lena River delta is reached shortly to the east.

The basin of the Anabar river is notable as the location of the largest concentration of diamond deposits in the world outside of Africa and Australia. These deposits made the Soviet Union into one of the world's largest producers of diamonds, and remain the economic mainstay of the area.

History

Historically Evenks have inhabited the basin of the Anabar River.[1] Vasiliy Sychev was the first Russian to reach the river in 1643.[2][3]

References

  1. ^ Forsyth, James (1992). A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian colony 1581-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
  2. ^ Armstrong, Terence (2010). Russian Settlement in the North. Cambridge University Press. 
  3. ^ Holland, Clive (1994). Arctic Exploration and Development, c. 500 B.C. to 1915: an encyclopedia. New York: Garland.