The strait, named after the explorer Dmitry Laptev (1701-1771), who discovered it in 1739 (1740), is located off the northern coast of Eurasia and separates the mainland from the island called Bolshoi Lyakhovsky. It is the largest in the group of Lyakhovsky islands that are part of the Novosibirsk archipelago. Where is the Dmitry Laptev Strait? In Russia. It connects the two northern seas: the Laptev and East Siberian. Geographically belongs to the first of them.
Discovery story
The strait was described and mapped by Dmitry Laptev during the so-called Great Northern Expedition of 1733-1743. Several units took part in it. Each of them was assigned a specific area of the territory, which was to be investigated and described. One of these detachments, namely Lensko-Kolymsky, was led by Dmitry Laptev, replacing P. Lassinius, who died of scurvy during this unsuccessful wintering, in this post. Since 1737, another of the detachments, Lensko-Yenisei, was led by Dmitry's cousin Khariton Laptev, who took over after the death of Vasily Pronchishchev. Subsequently, the Laptev Sea was named in honor of the sailors.
However, there is evidence that the strait was known to sailors much earlier. So, in 1640 Fedor Chyurka sailed this way, heading from Lena to Indigirka. In the opposite direction, in the same year, Ivan Robrov, a Tobolsk merchant, known for having sailed seven years earlier for the first time from the Lena River to the sea, passed through the Strait.
Strait development
Gradually, swimming in the East Siberian Sea becomes quite lively. Mariners in those days used fragile little boats, called Kochi, which were completely unsuitable for local conditions. They moved on them close to the shore. Kochi often crashed, and surviving travelers made their way across the ice to the shore.
The description of the coastline and the mapping of the strait by Dmitry Laptev was of great importance. It was on the basis of his work that both navigational and geographical maps were subsequently compiled. However, shipping in the full sense of the word in these places, due to harsh conditions, has not yet appeared. In 1761, the merchant Nikita Shalaurov passed through the strait, who had already repeatedly tried to bypass the northeastern end of Asia and, in the end, died in 1764 after his ship crashed. After him, over the course of 100 years, not a single large ship has passed here. Shipping was resumed only in 1912.
Currently, one of the sections of the Northern Sea Route passes through the Laptev Strait and the Vilkitsky Strait . Harsh conditions make it possible for ships to pass here relatively freely in the summer and in September - the rest of the time the strait is covered with ice. For the first time in one navigation, it was completed in 1932.
Description of the Dmitry Laptev Strait, environmental conditions
The geographic coordinates of the strait are 72 ° 58′33 ″ s. W, 142 ° 22′58 ″ in. It is located in the territorial waters of the Russian Federation, and belongs to the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The strait is shallow (up to 20 meters). Its length is 115 kilometers, its width is from 50 to 61.
The climate here is extremely harsh, arctic continental, and the strait is hidden for most of the year under the ice. On the shore there are outcrops of fossil ice to the surface. The average temperature in winter (in January, the coldest month) is -30 ... -31 ° C, but can drop to -50 ° C. At a mark below zero, it is 9-10 months a year. The polar night and the polar day last three months a year.
The seas that connect the strait are extremely poor in biological resources, due to harsh climatic conditions. The vegetation is represented by diatoms, green and blue-green algae. Sushi plants are mainly lichens and mosses. Several dozen commercial fish species live in the sea, including smelt, saffron cod, nelma, omul, vendace, char and others. Walruses, belugas and seals live on the coast.
Interesting Facts
Since some of the islands in the northern seas consist of terrestrial rocks mixed with ice, they can disappear with changing climatic conditions. In particular, such a fate befell Fr. Figurin, which in the 19th century lay north of Fadeevsky. In the Strait of Dmitry Laptev there were previously two islands, which later disappeared and turned into shallows: Mercury and Diomede. Already in the 20th century, two islands disappeared into the Laptev Sea: Semenovsky and Vasilievsky.
The southern coast of the strait, located on the mainland and called Oyogos-Yar, is the place where the remains of fossil animals, in particular horses and mammoths, were found. Studies have shown that the mummified remains of a horse are approximately 4600-5000 years old. Interestingly, cereals and marsh plants were found in her stomach. Consequently, the climate in this area in those days was much milder.