Feklistova Island


Feklistova or Feklistov Island is one of the Shantar Islands in Sea of Okhotsk. With an area of, it is the second largest in the archipelago.

Geography

Feklistova is west to east and north to south. It lies about west of Bolshoy Shantar Island, the main island in the group. Feklistov Island is covered with taiga forest and has a lake on its northern shore separated from the sea by a spit of land.
Administratively this island belongs to the Khabarovsk Krai of the Russian Federation.
This island is part of the "Kondyor-Feklistov metallogenic belt" owing to the presence of placers which include minerals like "blacksand platinum".
The "Kondyor-Feklistov metallogenic belt" is one of the major metallogenic belts of Northeast Asia. It is assumed that it formed by an oblique subduction of the oceanic crust of the Mongol-Okhotsk paleoocean under the southern margin of the Siberian continent.

History

Between 1852 and 1889, American whaleships cruised for bowhead whales off Feklistova Island. They also anchored in Lebyazhya Bay on the south side of the island to stow down or boil oil, flense whales, and obtain wood and water or shelter from storms. They referred to the anchorage itself as Feklistova Harbor. The ship Lexington, of Nantucket, reported sixteen other whaleships anchored in Feklistova Harbor, of which five were boiling oil; seven more were seen coming in.