Zhokhov Island


Zhokhov Island is an island in the East Siberian Sea, situated 128 km north east of Novaya Sibir Island, the easternmost of the New Siberian Islands. Administratively the island belongs to the Yakutia administrative division of Russia.

Geography

Zhokhov Island is part of the De Long group. The nearest island is Vilkitsky, the southernmost island of the group. Zhokhov is in length and has an area of. The highest point of the island is.
Although the island itself is unglaciated, the sea surrounding Zhokhov Island is covered with fast ice, even during the summer, and the climate is severe.

Geology

Zhokhov Island consists of extrusive basalt lava flows and tuffs. The bulk of this island is made up of a thick stack of olivine basalt, olivine trachybasalt, and nepheline basalt lava flows. Overlying these lava flows is a layer of friable volcanic ash and tuff that is capped by a thick basalt lava flow. The total thickness of volcanic rocks exposed within Zhokhov Island is about 400 meters

Vegetation

Rush/grass, forb, cryptogam tundra covers the Zhokhov 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.

History

humans occupied the island as early as 6000 BCE. Tools of stone, bone, antler, and ivory have been found, as well as wooden arrow shafts and a sledge runner. Animal remains suggest a culture dependent on the hunting of polar bears and reindeer. Evidence published in 2017 suggests that the early inhabitants of Zhokhov Island were among the first humans to selectively breed dogs. Findings indicate that larger dogs may have been bred for hunting and smaller dogs weighing to were bred for pulling sleds.
In modern times, Zhokhov Island was discovered by the 1910–1915 Russian Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition under Boris Vilkitsky on the ships Vaygach and Taymyr. It was originally named Novopashenniy Island, after Piotr Alekseyevich Novopashenniy Captain of icebreaker Vaygach, but in 1926 it was renamed after Lieutenant Alexey Zhokhov, a member of the expedition.

Climate

In popular culture

Zhokhov Island is mentioned in Stanley Kubrick's as a place where the Russians built the doomsday device.
Ostrov Zhokhova is also mentioned in the Soviet "sad comedy" film by Georgii Danelia "Osennii Marafon". The film's "hero" Andrei Buzykin's daughter and her husband depart to take up a job in the weather station on Zhokhov Island, to Andrei's horror.