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218-471: Approximately 85% of the archipelago is glaciated , with large unglaciated areas on the largest islands and many of the smallest ones. The islands have a combined coastline of 4,425 kilometers (2,750 mi). Compared to other Arctic archipelagos, Franz Josef Land is highly dissected, as a result of it being heavy glaciated, with a very low ratio of total area to coastline of just ~3.6 square kilometers per coastline kilometer. Cape Fligely on Rudolf Island

436-424: A cirque landform (alternatively known as a corrie or as a cwm ) – a typically armchair-shaped geological feature (such as a depression between mountains enclosed by arêtes ) – which collects and compresses through gravity the snow that falls into it. This snow accumulates and the weight of the snow falling above compacts it, forming névé (granular snow). Further crushing of the individual snowflakes and squeezing

654-693: A sauna , being beaten with birch twigs by two young girls. The first leg of the journey eastward took Fram across the Barents Sea towards Novaya Zemlya and then to the North Russian settlement of Khabarova where the first batch of dogs was brought on board. On 3 August Fram weighed anchor and moved cautiously eastward, entering the Kara Sea the next day. Few ships had sailed the Kara Sea before, and charts were incomplete. On 18 August, in

872-655: A Norwegian cruise ship to visit the islands. In 2012, the Russian Air Force decided to reopen the Graham Bell Airfield as part of a series of reopenings of air bases in the Arctic. A major new base, named the Arctic Trefoil for its three lobed structure, was constructed at Nagurskoye . It can maintain 150 soldiers for 18 months and has an area of 14,000 square meters. The upgraded airbase

1090-404: A blast from her cannon, left the ice behind. She had emerged from the ice just north and west of Spitsbergen, close to Nansen's original prediction, proving him right and his detractors wrong. Later that same day a ship was sighted— Søstrone , a seal hunter from Tromsø. Sverdrup rowed across for news, and learned that nothing had been heard from Nansen. Fram called briefly at Spitsbergen, where

1308-432: A change in conditions allowed them to launch their kayaks for the first time since leaving their winter quarters. A week later, Nansen was forced to dive into the icy waters to rescue the kayaks which, still tied together, had drifted away after being carelessly moored. He managed to reach the craft and, with a last effort, to haul himself aboard. Despite his frozen condition he shot and retrieved two guillemots as he paddled

1526-576: A chosen companion, Hjalmar Johansen , left the ship with a team of Samoyed dogs and sledges and made for the pole. They did not reach it, but they achieved a record Farthest North latitude of 86°13.6′N before a long retreat over ice and water to reach safety in Franz Josef Land . Meanwhile, Fram continued to drift westward, finally emerging in the North Atlantic Ocean. The idea for the expedition had arisen after items from

1744-737: A collaboration between the Academy of Sciences, the Norwegian Polar Institute and the Polish Academy of Sciences resulted in the first of several archaeological expeditions organized by the Institute of Culture in Moscow. The military base on Graham Bell Island was abandoned in the early 1990s. The military presence at Nagurskoye was reduced to that of a border post, and the number of people stationed at Krenkel Observatory

1962-522: A glacier is usually assessed by determining the glacier mass balance or observing terminus behavior. Healthy glaciers have large accumulation zones, more than 60% of their area is snow-covered at the end of the melt season, and they have a terminus with a vigorous flow. Following the Little Ice Age 's end around 1850, glaciers around the Earth have retreated substantially . A slight cooling led to

2180-601: A glacier may flow into a body of water, it forms only on land and is distinct from the much thinner sea ice and lake ice that form on the surface of bodies of water. On Earth, 99% of glacial ice is contained within vast ice sheets (also known as "continental glaciers") in the polar regions , but glaciers may be found in mountain ranges on every continent other than the Australian mainland, including Oceania's high-latitude oceanic island countries such as New Zealand . Between latitudes 35°N and 35°S, glaciers occur only in

2398-552: A glacier on the island, and by 1937 the winter population hit 300. Activity dwindled during the Second World War and only a small group of men were kept at Rudolf Island, remaining unsupplied throughout the war. They never discovered Nazi Germany's establishment of a weather station, named Schatzgräber , on Alexandra Land as part of the North Atlantic weather war . The German station was evacuated in 1944 after

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2616-411: A glacier via moulins . Streams within or beneath a glacier flow in englacial or sub-glacial tunnels. These tunnels sometimes reemerge at the glacier's surface. Most of the important processes controlling glacial motion occur in the ice-bed contact—even though it is only a few meters thick. The bed's temperature, roughness and softness define basal shear stress, which in turn defines whether movement of

2834-458: A hurricane come and tear up this ice?" Only after the turn of the year, in January 1894, did the northerly direction become generally settled. The 80° mark was finally passed on 22 March. Based on the uncertain direction and slow speed of the drift, Nansen calculated that it might take the ship five years to reach the pole. In January 1894 he had first discussed with both Henriksen and Johansen

3052-408: A kilometer per year. Eventually, the ice will be surging fast enough that it begins to thin, as accumulation cannot keep up with the transport. This thinning will increase the conductive heat loss, slowing the glacier and causing freezing. This freezing will slow the glacier further, often until it is stationary, whence the cycle can begin again. The flow of water under the glacial surface can have

3270-404: A large effect on the motion of the glacier itself. Subglacial lakes contain significant amounts of water, which can move fast: cubic kilometers can be transported between lakes over the course of a couple of years. This motion is thought to occur in two main modes: pipe flow involves liquid water moving through pipe-like conduits, like a sub-glacial river; sheet flow involves motion of water in

3488-460: A lower heat conductance, meaning that the basal temperature is also likely to be higher. Bed temperature tends to vary in a cyclic fashion. A cool bed has a high strength, reducing the speed of the glacier. This increases the rate of accumulation, since newly fallen snow is not transported away. Consequently, the glacier thickens, with three consequences: firstly, the bed is better insulated, allowing greater retention of geothermal heat. Secondly,

3706-447: A means of communication across it." However, most experienced polar hands were dismissive. The American explorer Adolphus Greely called it "an illogical scheme of self-destruction"; his assistant, Lieutenant David Brainerd, called it "one of the most ill-advised schemes ever embarked on", and predicted that it would end in disaster. Sir Allen Young, a veteran of the searches for Sir John Franklin's lost expedition , did not believe that

3924-500: A moment's awkward hesitation, Jackson recognised his visitor: "You are Nansen, aren't you?", and received the reply "Yes, I am Nansen." Johansen was rescued, and the pair taken to the base at Cape Flora, where they posed for photographs (in one instance re-enacting the Jackson–Nansen meeting) before taking baths and haircuts. Both men seemed in good health, despite their ordeal; Nansen had put on 21 pounds (9.5 kg) in weight since

4142-550: A path forward, but saw only "a veritable chaos of iceblocks stretching as far as the horizon". He decided that they would go no further north, and would head for Cape Fligely in Franz Josef Land. Nansen recorded the latitude of their final northerly camp as 86°13.6′N, almost three degrees (169.6 nautical miles or 314.1 kilometres) beyond Greely's previous Farthest North mark. The change of direction to south-west provided much better travelling conditions, probably because

4360-405: A polar bear attack; two days later they reached the edge of the ice, and only water lay between them and the land. On 6 August they shot the last two dogs, converted the kayaks into a catamaran by lashing sledges and skis across them, and raised a sail. Nansen called this first land "Hvidtenland" ("White Island"). After making camp on an ice foot they ascended a slope and looked about them. It

4578-443: A progression which indicated that no undiscovered land mass was nearby. On 15 November 1895 Fram reached 85°55′N, only 19 nautical miles (35 km; 22 mi) below Nansen's Farthest North mark. From this point on, the drift was generally to the south and west, although progress was for long periods almost imperceptible. Inactivity and boredom led to increased drinking; Scott Hansen recorded that Christmas and New Year passed "with

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4796-424: A row ... or did he go off for Franz Josef Land from sensational motives or business reasons?" Adolphus Greely, who had initially dismissed the entire expedition as infeasible, admitted that he had been proved wrong but nevertheless drew attention to "the single blemish"—Nansen's decision to leave his comrades hundreds of miles from land. "It passes comprehension", Greely wrote, "how Nansen could have thus deviated from

5014-438: A ship could be built to withstand the crushing pressure of the ice: "If there is no swell the ice must go through her, whatever material she is made of." Sir Joseph Hooker , who had sailed south with James Clark Ross in 1839–43, was of the same opinion, and thought the risks were not worth taking. However, the equally experienced Sir Leopold McClintock called Nansen's project "the most adventurous programme ever brought under

5232-576: A ship to take them home. Three days later Nansen asked Hjalmar Johansen, the most experienced dog-driver among the crew, to join him on the polar journey. The crew spent the following months preparing for the forthcoming dash for the pole. On the Inuit model, they built qamutit that would facilitate fast travel over rough sea ice terrain and constructed kayaks for use during the expected water crossings. There were endless trials of special clothing and other gear. Violent and prolonged tremors began to shake

5450-478: A sledge journey might be necessary to reach the pole, in September Nansen decreed that everyone would practice skiing for two hours a day. On 16 November he revealed his intention to the crew: he and one companion would leave the ship and start for the pole when the 83° mark was passed. After reaching the pole the pair would make for Franz Josef Land , and then cross to Spitsbergen where they hoped to find

5668-476: A smaller number of lagoon lakes. Their sizes vary from 2 square kilometers (0.77 sq mi) to 0.4 hectares (0.99 acres). Most are only 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) deep, with the deepest measured at 10 meters (33 ft). The sea currents surrounding the archipelago touch eastern Svalbard and northern Novaya Zemlya. The cold Makarov Current flows from the north and the Arctic Current flows from

5886-477: A specially designed ship could be frozen in the pack ice and follow the same track as Jeannette wreckage, thus reaching the vicinity of the pole. Nansen supervised the construction of a vessel with a rounded hull and other features designed to withstand prolonged pressure from ice. The ship was rarely threatened during her long imprisonment, and emerged unscathed after three years. The scientific observations carried out during this period contributed significantly to

6104-488: A thin layer. A switch between the two flow conditions may be associated with surging behavior. Indeed, the loss of sub-glacial water supply has been linked with the shut-down of ice movement in the Kamb ice stream. The subglacial motion of water is expressed in the surface topography of ice sheets, which slump down into vacated subglacial lakes. The speed of glacial displacement is partly determined by friction . Friction makes

6322-410: A tremendous impact as the iceberg strikes the water. Tidewater glaciers undergo centuries-long cycles of advance and retreat that are much less affected by climate change than other glaciers. Thermally, a temperate glacier is at a melting point throughout the year, from its surface to its base. The ice of a polar glacier is always below the freezing threshold from the surface to its base, although

6540-575: A week's travel had brought them 47 nautical miles (87 km; 54 mi) nearer to the pole, but also showed that their average daily distances were falling. More worryingly, a theodolite reading that day suggested that they were at only 85°15′N, and they had no means of knowing which of the readings was correct. They realised that they were fighting a southerly drift, and that distances travelled did not necessarily equate to northerly progression. Johansen's diary indicated his failing spirits: "My fingers are all destroyed. All mittens are frozen stiff ... It

6758-499: Is 15 centimeters (5.9 in) per second. Pack ice occurs throughout the year around the entire island group, with the lowest levels being during August and September. One-year winter ice starts forming in October and reaches a thickness of 1.5 meters (4 ft 11 in). Icebergs are common year-round. Franz Josef Land is in a transition zone between an ice cap climate (EF) and a tundra climate (ET), technically falling into

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6976-468: Is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries . It acquires distinguishing features, such as crevasses and seracs , as it slowly flows and deforms under stresses induced by its weight. As it moves, it abrades rock and debris from its substrate to create landforms such as cirques , moraines , or fjords . Although

7194-456: Is above or at freezing at the interface and is able to slide at this contact. This contrast is thought to a large extent to govern the ability of a glacier to effectively erode its bed , as sliding ice promotes plucking at rock from the surface below. Glaciers which are partly cold-based and partly warm-based are known as polythermal . Glaciers form where the accumulation of snow and ice exceeds ablation . A glacier usually originates from

7412-407: Is affected by factors such as slope, ice thickness, snowfall, longitudinal confinement, basal temperature, meltwater production, and bed hardness. A few glaciers have periods of very rapid advancement called surges . These glaciers exhibit normal movement until suddenly they accelerate, then return to their previous movement state. These surges may be caused by the failure of the underlying bedrock,

7630-411: Is because these peaks are located near or in the hyperarid Atacama Desert . Glaciers erode terrain through two principal processes: plucking and abrasion . As glaciers flow over bedrock, they soften and lift blocks of rock into the ice. This process, called plucking, is caused by subglacial water that penetrates fractures in the bedrock and subsequently freezes and expands. This expansion causes

7848-550: Is becoming worse and worse ... God knows what will happen to us". On 3 April, after days of difficult travel, Nansen privately began to wonder if the pole might, after all, be out of reach. Unless the surface improved, their food would not last them to the pole and then on to Franz Josef Land. The next day they calculated their position at a disappointing 86°3'; Nansen confided in his diary that: "I have become more and more convinced we ought to turn before time." After making camp on 7 April Nansen scouted ahead on snowshoes looking for

8066-406: Is by basal sliding, where meltwater forms between the ice and the bed itself. Whether a bed is hard or soft depends on the porosity and pore pressure; higher porosity decreases the sediment strength (thus increases the shear stress τ B ). Porosity may vary through a range of methods. Bed softness may vary in space or time, and changes dramatically from glacier to glacier. An important factor

8284-434: Is called glaciology . Glaciers are important components of the global cryosphere . Glaciers are categorized by their morphology, thermal characteristics, and behavior. Alpine glaciers form on the crests and slopes of mountains. A glacier that fills a valley is called a valley glacier , or alternatively, an alpine glacier or mountain glacier . A large body of glacial ice astride a mountain, mountain range, or volcano

8502-416: Is called rock flour and is made up of rock grains between 0.002 and 0.00625 mm in size. Abrasion leads to steeper valley walls and mountain slopes in alpine settings, which can cause avalanches and rock slides, which add even more material to the glacier. Glacial abrasion is commonly characterized by glacial striations . Glaciers produce these when they contain large boulders that carve long scratches in

8720-592: Is considered a threat to the U.S. military installation at Thule, Greenland . In 2017, Russian president Vladimir Putin visited the archipelago. In August 2019, a geographic expedition by the Russian Northern Fleet to Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya discovered a new island in the archipelago, previously thought to be a peninsula of Hall Island . The archipelago constitutes the northernmost part of Russia's Arkhangelsk Oblast, located between 79°46′ and 81°52′ north and 44°52′ and 62°25′ east. It

8938-647: Is higher, and the mountains above 5,000 m (16,400 ft) usually have permanent snow. Even at high latitudes, glacier formation is not inevitable. Areas of the Arctic , such as Banks Island , and the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica are considered polar deserts where glaciers cannot form because they receive little snowfall despite the bitter cold. Cold air, unlike warm air, is unable to transport much water vapor. Even during glacial periods of

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9156-413: Is most common during the summer. Average annual precipitation at the coastal stations is between 100 and 150 millimetres (3.9 and 5.9 in), with the wettest months being from July through September. Elevated areas can experience considerably higher precipitation. Franz Josef Land is significantly colder than Spitsbergen , which experiences 8 °C (14 °F) warmer winter averages, but is warmer than

9374-411: Is present on most islands and on the bottom of the straits and consists of limestones , shales , sandstones and conglomerate . The Upper Mesozoic unit dominates in the southern and western parts, consisting of massive effusive rocks made up of basaltic sheets separated by volcanic ashes and tuffs , mixed with terrigenous rocks with layers of coal. The Mesozoic-Tertiary unit remains mostly on

9592-638: Is situated 360 kilometers (220 mi) north of Novaya Zemlya and 260 kilometers (160 mi) east of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard . Located within the Arctic Ocean, Franz Josef Land constitutes the northeastern border of the Barents Sea and the northwestern border of the Kara Sea. The islands are 900 kilometers (560 mi) from the North Pole and 750 kilometers (470 mi) from

9810-897: Is termed an ice cap or ice field . Ice caps have an area less than 50,000 km (19,000 sq mi) by definition. Glacial bodies larger than 50,000 km (19,000 sq mi) are called ice sheets or continental glaciers . Several kilometers deep, they obscure the underlying topography. Only nunataks protrude from their surfaces. The only extant ice sheets are the two that cover most of Antarctica and Greenland. They contain vast quantities of freshwater, enough that if both melted, global sea levels would rise by over 70 m (230 ft). Portions of an ice sheet or cap that extend into water are called ice shelves ; they tend to be thin with limited slopes and reduced velocities. Narrow, fast-moving sections of an ice sheet are called ice streams . In Antarctica, many ice streams drain into large ice shelves . Some drain directly into

10028-431: Is the bearded seal . Walruses were previously hunted, dramatically reducing the formerly abundant species. They have been internationally protected since 1952 and their numbers have since been on the rise, with between one and three thousand walruses living in the archipelago. The population is common with Svalbard and northern Novaya Zemlya . Minke whales , humpback whale , and beluga whales are commonly seen around

10246-534: Is the third-closest landmass to the North Pole. The archipelago comprises 191 uninhabited islands with a combined area of 16,134 square kilometers (6,229 sq mi). These stretch 375 kilometers (233 mi) from east to west and 234 kilometers (145 mi) from north to south. One can categorize the islands into three groups, a western, central and eastern, separated by the British Channel and

10464-492: Is the northernmost point of the Eastern Hemisphere . The highest elevations are found in the central and eastern group, with the highest point located on Wiener Neustadt Island , 620 meters (2,030 ft) above mean sea level . The archipelago was first spotted by the Norwegian sailors Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck and Johan Petter Aidijärvi in 1865, although they did not report their finding. The first reported finding

10682-413: Is the region where there is a net loss in glacier mass. The upper part of a glacier, where accumulation exceeds ablation, is called the accumulation zone . The equilibrium line separates the ablation zone and the accumulation zone; it is the contour where the amount of new snow gained by accumulation is equal to the amount of ice lost through ablation. In general, the accumulation zone accounts for 60–70% of

10900-402: Is the underlying geology; glacial speeds tend to differ more when they change bedrock than when the gradient changes. Further, bed roughness can also act to slow glacial motion. The roughness of the bed is a measure of how many boulders and obstacles protrude into the overlying ice. Ice flows around these obstacles by melting under the high pressure on their stoss side ; the resultant meltwater

11118-552: Is then forced into the cavity arising in their lee side , where it re-freezes. As well as affecting the sediment stress, fluid pressure (p w ) can affect the friction between the glacier and the bed. High fluid pressure provides a buoyancy force upwards on the glacier, reducing the friction at its base. The fluid pressure is compared to the ice overburden pressure, p i , given by ρgh. Under fast-flowing ice streams, these two pressures will be approximately equal, with an effective pressure (p i – p w ) of 30 kPa; i.e. all of

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11336-993: The Andes , the Himalayas , the Rocky Mountains , the Caucasus , Scandinavian Mountains , and the Alps . Snezhnika glacier in Pirin Mountain, Bulgaria with a latitude of 41°46′09″ N is the southernmost glacial mass in Europe. Mainland Australia currently contains no glaciers, although a small glacier on Mount Kosciuszko was present in the last glacial period . In New Guinea, small, rapidly diminishing, glaciers are located on Puncak Jaya . Africa has glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, on Mount Kenya , and in

11554-524: The Canadian Arctic Archipelago . The climate and permafrost limits soil development in the archipelago. Large areas are devoid of soil, with permafrost polygons being the most common site for soil to occur. The soil typically has incomplete soil profiles and polygonal form with rich content of iron and is either neutral or slightly acidic. The brown upper humus layers have three percent organic matter, increasing to eight percent in

11772-644: The Faroe and Crozet Islands were completely glaciated. The permanent snow cover necessary for glacier formation is affected by factors such as the degree of slope on the land, amount of snowfall and the winds. Glaciers can be found in all latitudes except from 20° to 27° north and south of the equator where the presence of the descending limb of the Hadley circulation lowers precipitation so much that with high insolation snow lines reach above 6,500 m (21,330 ft). Between 19˚N and 19˚S, however, precipitation

11990-760: The Himalayas , Andes , and a few high mountains in East Africa, Mexico, New Guinea and on Zard-Kuh in Iran. With more than 7,000 known glaciers, Pakistan has more glacial ice than any other country outside the polar regions. Glaciers cover about 10% of Earth's land surface. Continental glaciers cover nearly 13 million km (5 million sq mi) or about 98% of Antarctica 's 13.2 million km (5.1 million sq mi), with an average thickness of ice 2,100 m (7,000 ft). Greenland and Patagonia also have huge expanses of continental glaciers. The volume of glaciers, not including

12208-520: The Jeannette Expedition had had sufficient provisions, and had remained on the ice-floe on which the relics were found, the result would doubtless have been very different from what it was." When Nansen's plans became public knowledge The New York Times was enthusiastic, deeming it "highly probable that there is a comparatively short and direct route across the Arctic Ocean by way of the North Pole, and that nature herself has supplied

12426-562: The Quaternary , Manchuria , lowland Siberia , and central and northern Alaska , though extraordinarily cold, had such light snowfall that glaciers could not form. In addition to the dry, unglaciated polar regions, some mountains and volcanoes in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina are high (4,500 to 6,900 m or 14,800 to 22,600 ft) and cold, but the relative lack of precipitation prevents snow from accumulating into glaciers. This

12644-535: The Rwenzori Mountains . Oceanic islands with glaciers include Iceland, several of the islands off the coast of Norway including Svalbard and Jan Mayen to the far north, New Zealand and the subantarctic islands of Marion , Heard , Grande Terre (Kerguelen) and Bouvet . During glacial periods of the Quaternary, Taiwan , Hawaii on Mauna Kea and Tenerife also had large alpine glaciers, while

12862-609: The University of Christiania in 1897, and to a full professorship in oceanography in 1908. He became independently wealthy as a result of the publication of his expedition account; in his later career he served the newly independent kingdom of Norway in different capacities, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1922, in recognition of his work on behalf of refugees. Hjalmar Johansen never settled back into normal life. After years of drifting, debt and drunkenness he

13080-627: The Yamal Peninsula , the closest point of the Eurasian mainland. The archipelago falls within varying definitions of the Asia–Europe border , and is therefore variously defined as part of Asia or of Europe. Cape Flighely, situated at 81°50′ north, is the northernmost point in Eurasia and the Eastern Hemisphere , and of either Europe or Asia , depending on the continental definition. It

13298-462: The dead water phenomenon, where a ship's forward progress is impeded by energy dissipation caused by a layer of fresh water lying on top of heavier salt water. On 9 September a wide stretch of ice-free water opened up, and next day Fram rounded Cape Chelyuskin—the second ship to do so, after Nordenskiöld's Vega in 1878—and entered the Laptev Sea . After being prevented by ice from reaching

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13516-472: The littoral zone , but the sublittoral zone (2 to 25 meters (6 ft 7 in to 82 ft 0 in)) is dominated by laminaria , most commonly Laminaria sachcharina , and red algae , such as Phycodrys rubens . There are 33 species of fish in the waters, none of which are abundant or commercially exploitable. The most common are polar cod , which reach lengths of 20 centimeters (7.9 in), and liparidae . There are no endemic species within

13734-522: The sector principle , they pronounced all land between the Soviet mainland and the North Pole to be Soviet territory. This principle has never been internationally recognized. Both Italy and Norway protested. Norway was first and foremost concerned about its economic interests in the area, in a period when Norwegian hunters and whalers were also being barred from the White Sea , Novaya Zemlya and Greenland;

13952-439: The 1895 summer approached, Sverdrup resumed daily ski practice. Amid these activities a full programme of meteorological, magnetic and oceanographic activities continued under Scott Hansen; Fram had become a moving oceanographic, meteorological and biological laboratory. As the drift proceeded the ocean became deeper; soundings gave successive depths of 6,000 feet (1,800 m), 9,000 and 12,000 feet (2,700 and 3,700 m),

14170-448: The 1990s and 2000s. In a study using data from January 1993 through October 2005, more events were detected every year since 2002, and twice as many events were recorded in 2005 as there were in any other year. Ogives or Forbes bands are alternating wave crests and valleys that appear as dark and light bands of ice on glacier surfaces. They are linked to seasonal motion of glaciers; the width of one dark and one light band generally equals

14388-476: The 493.7-square-kilometer (190.6 sq mi) Kholmistyi Peninsula of Graham Bell Island, the 270-square-kilometer (100 sq mi) Central'naya Susha of Alexandra Land, the 162.6-square-kilometer (62.8 sq mi) Ganza Point of Wilczek Land and the 84.2-square-kilometer (32.5 sq mi) Heyes Island. Most of the smaller islands are unglaciated. Streams only form during the runoff period from May through early September. Permafrost causes most of

14606-549: The American vessel Jeannette , which had sunk off the north coast of Siberia in 1881, were discovered three years later off the south-west coast of Greenland . The wreckage had obviously been carried across the polar ocean, perhaps across the pole itself. Based on this and other debris recovered from the Greenland coast, the meteorologist Henrik Mohn developed a theory of transpolar drift , which led Nansen to believe that

14824-726: The Austrian Strait. The central group is further divided into a northern and southern section by the Markham Strait . Graham Bell Island is separated from the eastern group by the Severo–Vostochnyi Strait. There are two named island clusters: Zichy Land north of Markham Sound ; and Belaya Zemlya to the extreme northeast. The straits are narrow, between several hundred meters to 3 kilometers (2 mi) wide. They reach depths of 500 to 600 meters (1,600 to 2,000 ft), 150 to 300 meters (500 to 1,000 ft) below

15042-592: The Exploration of the Barents Sea, on board the schooner Willem Barents . Constrained by the ice, they never reached land. Benjamin Leigh Smith 's expedition in 1880, aboard the barque Eira , followed a route from Spitsbergen to Franz Josef Land, landing on Bell Island in August. Leigh Smith explored the vicinity and set up a base at Eira Harbour, before exploring towards McClintock Island . He returned

15260-441: The Greenland crossing. Theodore Jacobsen, who had experience in the Arctic as skipper of a sloop , signed on as Fram's mate, and a young naval lieutenant, Sigurd Scott Hansen , took charge of meteorological and magnetic observations. The ship's doctor, and the expedition's botanist, was Henrik Blessing, who graduated in medicine just before Fram's sailing date. Hjalmar Johansen , an army reserve lieutenant and dog-driving expert,

15478-544: The New Siberian Islands, and in the approximate position of Jeannette's sinking, when ice conditions were right "we shall plough our way in amongst the ice as far as we can." The ship would then drift with the ice towards the pole and eventually reach the sea between Greenland and Spitsbergen. Should the ship founder, a possibility which Nansen thought very unlikely, the party would camp on a floe and allow itself to be carried towards safety. Nansen observed: "If

15696-539: The Pole. It seemed that the obvious thing to do was "to make our way into the current on that side of the Pole where it flows northward, and by its help to penetrate into those regions which all who have hitherto worked against [the current] have sought in vain to reach." Nansen's plan required a small, strong and manoeuvrable ship, powered by sail and an engine, capable of carrying fuel and provisions for twelve men for five years. The vessel would follow Jeannette's route to

15914-458: The South Pole heroes Amundsen, Scott , and Ernest Shackleton were all Nansen's acolytes. Nansen's status was never seriously challenged, although he did not escape criticism. American explorer Robert Peary wondered why Nansen had not returned to the ship when his polar dash was thwarted after a mere three weeks away. "Was he ashamed to go back after so short an absence, or had there been

16132-468: The Soviet government, however, largely remained passive, and did not evict Norwegian hunting ships during the following years. Nor did the Soviets interfere when, in 1928, several foreign ships entered the waters in search of the vanished airship Italia . Norway attempted both a diplomatic solution and a Lars Christensen -financed expedition to establish a weather station to gain economic control over

16350-541: The Swedish explorer-engineer Salomon Andrée was preparing for the balloon flight that he hoped would take him to the pole . After a short time ashore, Sverdrup and his crew began the trip south to Norway. In the course of the expedition, rumours circulated that Nansen had reached the North Pole, the first as early as April 1894, in the French Newspaper Le Figaro . In September 1895 Eva Nansen

16568-412: The advance of many alpine glaciers between 1950 and 1985, but since 1985 glacier retreat and mass loss has become larger and increasingly ubiquitous. Glaciers move downhill by the force of gravity and the internal deformation of ice. At the molecular level, ice consists of stacked layers of molecules with relatively weak bonds between layers. When the amount of strain (deformation) is proportional to

16786-463: The advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles , the Soviet Union changed its military strategy in 1956, abolishing the strategic need for an airbase on the archipelago. The International Geophysical Year of 1957 and 1958 gave a new rise to the scientific interest in the archipelago and an airstrip was built on Heiss Island in 1956. The following year the geophysical Ernst Krenkel Observatory

17004-520: The air from the snow turns it into "glacial ice". This glacial ice will fill the cirque until it "overflows" through a geological weakness or vacancy, such as a gap between two mountains. When the mass of snow and ice reaches sufficient thickness, it begins to move by a combination of surface slope, gravity, and pressure. On steeper slopes, this can occur with as little as 15 m (49 ft) of snow-ice. In temperate glaciers, snow repeatedly freezes and thaws, changing into granular ice called firn . Under

17222-449: The altitude: up to 120 to 130 meters (390 to 430 ft) there is a belt of grass-moss arctic desert, then moss-lichen arctic desert to 175 to 200 meters (574 to 656 ft), then lichen arctic desert up to 250 to 315 meters (820 to 1,033 ft) and above lifeless snow desert, with occasional lichens on nunataks and snow algae on glacier surfaces. Trees, shrubs and tall plants cannot survive. About 150 species of bryophytes dominate

17440-430: The amount of melting at surface of the glacier, the faster the ice will flow. Basal sliding is dominant in temperate or warm-based glaciers. The presence of basal meltwater depends on both bed temperature and other factors. For instance, the melting point of water decreases under pressure, meaning that water melts at a lower temperature under thicker glaciers. This acts as a "double whammy", because thicker glaciers have

17658-713: The annual movement of the glacier. Ogives are formed when ice from an icefall is severely broken up, increasing ablation surface area during summer. This creates a swale and space for snow accumulation in the winter, which in turn creates a ridge. Sometimes ogives consist only of undulations or color bands and are described as wave ogives or band ogives. Glaciers are present on every continent and in approximately fifty countries, excluding those (Australia, South Africa) that have glaciers only on distant subantarctic island territories. Extensive glaciers are found in Antarctica, Argentina, Chile, Canada, Pakistan, Alaska, Greenland and Iceland. Mountain glaciers are widespread, especially in

17876-613: The archipelago is located on the northern edge of the Barents Sea Platform, within an area where Mesozoic sedimentary rocks are exposed. The area has four units separated by regional erosion surfaces . The Upper Paleozoic unit is poorly exposed and was created by folding during the Caledonian period. The Lower Mesozoic unit, consisting of coastal and marine sediments from the Upper Triassic period,

18094-420: The archipelago's area. The highest elevation is a peak on Wilczek Land, which rises 670 meters (2,200 ft) above mean sea level. Victoria Island , located 170 kilometers (110 mi) to the west of Alexandra Land, is administratively part of the archipelago, but the island is not geographically part of the island group and is closer to Svalbard, located 60 kilometers (37 mi) from Kvitøya . Geologically

18312-587: The archipelago, the most common being Thalassiosira antarctica and Chaetoceros decipiens . The bloom takes place between May and August. Of the roughly fifty species of zooplankton , calanoids dominate, with Calanus glacialis and Calanus hyperboreus constituting the greater portion of the biomass. On the sea bottom there are 34 species of macroalgae and at least 500 species of macrofauna . Most common are crustaceans such as amphipods and shrimps , polychaetes and echinoderms , such as sea bristles . The ice scouring causes there to be little life in

18530-514: The archipelago. Forty-one species of birds have been documented in the archipelago, of which fourteen breed. These are dominated by seabirds such as fulmar , kittiwake , Brünnich's guillemot , black guillemot and little auk are common throughout the archipelago, while seven other species prefer nesting on flat tundra: common eider , purple sandpiper , Arctic skua , glaucous gull , ivory gull , Arctic tern and snow bunting . Some ivory gulls, little auks and Brünnich's guillemots opt to spend

18748-407: The archipelago. The glaciers have an average thickness of 180 meters (590 ft), which would convert to 2,500 cubic kilometers (600 cu mi). This would alone give a 6 millimeters (0.24 in) eustatic rise in sea level should it melt. Large ice-free areas are only found on the largest islands, such as the 499.8-square-kilometer (193.0 sq mi) Armitage Peninsula of George Land,

18966-640: The area of the New Siberian Islands , before being crushed and sunk on 13 June 1881. Her crew escaped in boats and made for the Siberian coast; most, including De Long, subsequently perished either during the boat journey or in the wastelands of the Lena River delta. Three years later, relics from Jeannette appeared on the opposite side of the world, in the vicinity of Julianehaab on the southwest coast of Greenland. These items, frozen into

19184-622: The area of the Yenisei River delta, an uncharted island was discovered and named Sverdrup Island after Fram's commander. Fram was now moving towards the Taimyr Peninsula and Cape Chelyuskin , the most northerly point of the Eurasian continental mass. Heavy ice slowed the expedition's progress, and at the end of August it was held up for four days while the ship's boiler was repaired and cleaned. The crew also experienced

19402-631: The area, and its captain, I. I. Islyamov hoisted a Russian iron flag at Cape Flora and proclaimed Russian sovereignty over the archipelago. The act was motivated by the ongoing First World War and Russian fears of the Central Powers establishing themselves there. The world's first Arctic flight took place in August 1914, when Polish aviator (one of the first pilots of the Russian Navy) Jan Nagórski overflew Franz Josef Land in search of Sedov's group. Andromeda set out for

19620-442: The base for their winter quarters, Nansen and Johansen found a beach in a sheltered cove on what is now called Jackson Island , with a plentiful supply of stones and moss for building materials. They excavated a hole three feet deep, raised walls around it using loose rocks and stones, and stretched walrus skins over the top to form a roof. A chimney was improvised using snow and walrus bones. This shelter, which they called "The Hole",

19838-432: The bedrock has frequent fractures on the surface, glacial erosion rates tend to increase as plucking is the main erosive force on the surface; when the bedrock has wide gaps between sporadic fractures, however, abrasion tends to be the dominant erosive form and glacial erosion rates become slow. Glaciers in lower latitudes tend to be much more erosive than glaciers in higher latitudes, because they have more meltwater reaching

20056-445: The bedrock. By mapping the direction of the striations, researchers can determine the direction of the glacier's movement. Similar to striations are chatter marks , lines of crescent-shape depressions in the rock underlying a glacier. They are formed by abrasion when boulders in the glacier are repeatedly caught and released as they are dragged along the bedrock. The rate of glacier erosion varies. Six factors control erosion rate: When

20274-474: The catamaran back. On 13 June walruses attacked and damaged the kayaks, causing another stop for repairs. On 17 June, as they prepared to leave again, Nansen thought he heard a dog bark and went to investigate. He then heard voices, and a few minutes later encountered a human being. It was Frederick Jackson, who had organised his own expedition to Franz Josef Land after being rejected by Nansen, and had based his headquarters at Cape Flora on Northbrook Island ,

20492-418: The city had ever seen, according to Huntford. Nansen and his crew were received by King Oscar ; on the way to the reception they passed through a triumphal arch formed by 200 gymnasts. Nansen and his family stayed at the palace as special guests of the king; by contrast, Johansen remained in the background, largely overlooked, and writing that "reality, after all, is not so wonderful as it appeared to me in

20710-612: The climate. The sea starts to freeze in late September and reaches its annual maximum in March, at which time ninety-five percent of the sea is ice-covered. The ice coverage starts to decrease in May and experiences major melting in June, with the minimum occurring in August or early September. During winter, high-pressure weather and clear skies cause radiation loss from the ground, sending temperatures down to −40 °C (−40 °F). During shifts

20928-403: The correct time they could not calculate their longitude and thus maintain the correct course to Franz Josef Land. They restarted the watches based on Nansen's guesswork that their longitude was 86°E, but the pair were no longer certain where they were. If they were farther west than Nansen's assumption, they might miss Franz Josef Land altogether, and head for the open Atlantic. The direction of

21146-430: The course to Franz Josef Land was broadly parallel to the lines of disturbance in the ice instead of perpendicular to them. Progress was swift: "If this goes on," Nansen recorded on 13 April, "the return journey will be quicker than I thought." However, the same diary entry records a mishap that day: both men's watches had stopped. Although Nansen's journal comment is mild, the incident was potentially disastrous. Without

21364-571: The created ice's density. The word glacier is a loanword from French and goes back, via Franco-Provençal , to the Vulgar Latin glaciārium , derived from the Late Latin glacia , and ultimately Latin glaciēs , meaning "ice". The processes and features caused by or related to glaciers are referred to as glacial. The process of glacier establishment, growth and flow is called glaciation . The corresponding area of study

21582-467: The deep profile of fjords , which can reach a kilometer in depth as ice is topographically steered into them. The extension of fjords inland increases the rate of ice sheet thinning since they are the principal conduits for draining ice sheets. It also makes the ice sheets more sensitive to changes in climate and the ocean. Although evidence in favor of glacial flow was known by the early 19th century, other theories of glacial motion were advanced, such as

21800-483: The deformation to become a plastic flow rather than elastic. Then, the glacier will begin to deform under its own weight and flow across the landscape. According to the Glen–Nye flow law , the relationship between stress and strain, and thus the rate of internal flow, can be modeled as follows: where: The lowest velocities are near the base of the glacier and along valley sides where friction acts against flow, causing

22018-416: The determination that changes of the magnetic field occur in cycles of fifteen years. It also conducted topographical surveys of the surrounding area. Scurvy set in during the second winter, killing a machinist. Despite lacking prior experience or sufficient provisions, Sedov insisted on pressing forward with a march to the pole. His condition deteriorated and he died on 6 March. Hertha was sent to explore

22236-451: The drift became northerly, hampering the pair's progress. By 18 April, after 11 days' travel from Farthest North, they had only made 40 nautical miles (74 km; 46 mi) to the south. They now travelled over much more broken terrain with wide open leads of water. On about 20 April they were cheered by the sight of a large piece of driftwood stuck in a floe, the first object from the outside world they had seen since Fram had entered

22454-522: The drifting ice, included clothing bearing crew members' names and documents signed by De Long; they were indisputably genuine. In a lecture given in 1884 to the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Dr. Henrik Mohn , one of the founders of modern meteorology , argued that the finding of the Jeannette relics indicated the existence of an ocean current flowing from east to west across

22672-538: The east–west Arctic drift theory and its inherent possibilities for further polar exploration, and shortly after his return from Greenland he was ready to announce his plans. In February 1890 Nansen addressed a meeting of the Norwegian Geographical Society in Oslo (then called Christiania). After drawing attention to the failures of the many expeditions which had approached the North Pole from

22890-503: The embraces of the ice". To give exceptional strength the hull was sheathed in South American greenheart , the hardest timber available. The three layers of wood forming the hull provided a combined thickness of between 24 and 28 inches (61 and 71 centimetres), increasing to around 48 inches (1.2 metres) at the bow, which was further protected by a protruding iron stem. Added strength was provided by crossbeams and braces throughout

23108-433: The end of the month seals, gulls and whales were plentiful. By Nansen's calculations, they had reached 82°21′N on 31 May, placing them only 50 nautical miles (93 km; 58 mi) from Cape Fligely at the northern extremity of Franz Josef Land, if his longitude estimate was accurate. In the warmer weather the ice began to break up, making travel more difficult. Since 24 April dogs had been killed at regular intervals to feed

23326-536: The entire Arctic Ocean. The Danish governor of Julianehaab, writing of the find, surmised that an expedition frozen into the Siberian sea might, if its ship were to prove strong enough, cross the polar ocean and land in South Greenland. These theories were read with interest by the 23-year-old Fridtjof Nansen, then working as a curator at the Bergen Museum while completing his doctoral studies. Nansen

23544-418: The essentially correct explanation in the 1840s, although it was several decades before it was fully accepted. The top 50 m (160 ft) of a glacier are rigid because they are under low pressure . This upper section is known as the fracture zone and moves mostly as a single unit over the plastic-flowing lower section. When a glacier moves through irregular terrain, cracks called crevasses develop in

23762-461: The expedition Nansen continued to experiment with equipment and techniques, altering the designs of skis and sledges and investigating types of clothing, tents and cooking apparatus, thereby revolutionising methods of Arctic travel. In the era of polar exploration which followed his return, explorers routinely sought Nansen's advice as to methods and equipment—although sometimes they chose not to follow it, usually to their cost. According to Huntford,

23980-704: The financing required—the ship alone would cost more than the total at his disposal. A renewed plea to the Storting produced a further NOK 80,000, and a national appeal raised the grand total to NOK 445,000. According to Nansen's own account, he made up the remaining deficiency from his own resources. His biographer Roland Huntford records that the final deficit of NOK 12,000 was cleared by two wealthy supporters, Axel Heiberg and an English expatriate, Charles Dick. To design and build his ship Nansen chose Colin Archer , Norway's leading shipbuilder and naval architect. Archer

24198-437: The floe for a whole month. On 23 July, the day after leaving the camp, Nansen had the first indisputable glimpse of land. He wrote: "At last the marvel has come to pass—land, land, and after we had almost given up our belief in it!" In the succeeding days the pair struggled towards this land, which seemingly grew no nearer, although by the end of July they could hear the distant sound of breaking surf. On 4 August they survived

24416-471: The following year in the same vessel, landing at Grey Bay on George Land. The explorers were stopped by ice at Cape Flora , and Eira sank on 21 August. They built a cottage and stayed the winter, to be rescued by the British vessels Kara and Hope the following summer. These early expeditions concentrated their explorations on the southern and central parts of the archipelago. Nansen's Fram expedition

24634-475: The fracture zone. Crevasses form because of differences in glacier velocity. If two rigid sections of a glacier move at different speeds or directions, shear forces cause them to break apart, opening a crevasse. Crevasses are seldom more than 46 m (150 ft) deep but, in some cases, can be at least 300 m (1,000 ft) deep. Beneath this point, the plasticity of the ice prevents the formation of cracks. Intersecting crevasses can create isolated peaks in

24852-618: The future. Other expeditions that year were the Norwegian-Swedish balloon expedition led by Hans Wilhelmsson Ahlmann on Quest and the German airship Graf Zeppelin . Except for a German weather station emplaced during the Second World War , these were the last Western expeditions to Franz Josef Land until 1990. Soviet activities grew rapidly following the International Polar Year in 1932. The archipelago

25070-488: The geographical North Pole by harnessing the natural east–west current of the Arctic Ocean . In the face of much discouragement from other polar explorers, Nansen took his ship Fram to the New Siberian Islands in the eastern Arctic Ocean, froze her into the pack ice , and waited for the drift to carry her towards the pole. Impatient with the slow speed and erratic character of the drift, after 18 months Nansen and

25288-489: The glacial base and facilitate sediment production and transport under the same moving speed and amount of ice. Material that becomes incorporated in a glacier is typically carried as far as the zone of ablation before being deposited. Glacial deposits are of two distinct types: Nansen%27s Fram expedition Nansen's Fram expedition of 1893–1896 was an attempt by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen to reach

25506-453: The glacier to melt, creating a water source that is especially important for plants, animals and human uses when other sources may be scant. However, within high-altitude and Antarctic environments, the seasonal temperature difference is often not sufficient to release meltwater. Since glacial mass is affected by long-term climatic changes, e.g., precipitation , mean temperature , and cloud cover , glacial mass changes are considered among

25724-428: The glacier will be accommodated by motion in the sediments, or if it'll be able to slide. A soft bed, with high porosity and low pore fluid pressure, allows the glacier to move by sediment sliding: the base of the glacier may even remain frozen to the bed, where the underlying sediment slips underneath it like a tube of toothpaste. A hard bed cannot deform in this way; therefore the only way for hard-based glaciers to move

25942-510: The glacier's surface area, more if the glacier calves icebergs. Ice in the accumulation zone is deep enough to exert a downward force that erodes underlying rock. After a glacier melts, it often leaves behind a bowl- or amphitheater-shaped depression that ranges in size from large basins like the Great Lakes to smaller mountain depressions known as cirques . The accumulation zone can be subdivided based on its melt conditions. The health of

26160-617: The grassy turf, of which two-thirds are mosses and a third liverworts . The most common species are Aulacomnium , Ditrichum , Drepanocladus , Orthothecium and Tomenthypnum . More than 100 species of lichen are found on the island, the most common being Caloplaca , Lecanora , Lecidea , Ochrolechia and Rinodina . There are sixteen species of grass and about 100 species of algae , most commonly Cyanophyta and Diatomea . Fifty-seven species of vascular plants have been reported. The most common are Arctic poppy and saxifraga , which grow everywhere, independent of habitat, with

26378-457: The hull. Otherwise the first weeks in the ice were disappointing, as the unpredictable drift moved Fram in gyratory fashion, sometimes north, sometimes south; by 19 November, after six weeks, Fram was south of the latitude at which she had entered the ice. After the sun disappeared on 25 October the ship was lit by electric lamps from a wind-powered generator. The crew settled down to a comfortable routine in which boredom and inactivity were

26596-562: The ice at the bottom of the glacier move more slowly than ice at the top. In alpine glaciers, friction is also generated at the valley's sidewalls, which slows the edges relative to the center. Mean glacial speed varies greatly but is typically around 1 m (3 ft) per day. There may be no motion in stagnant areas; for example, in parts of Alaska, trees can establish themselves on surface sediment deposits. In other cases, glaciers can move as fast as 20–30 m (70–100 ft) per day, such as in Greenland's Jakobshavn Isbræ . Glacial speed

26814-404: The ice conditions in the Barents Sea could only be explained if there was another land mass in the area, but he never received funding for an expedition. The Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition of 1872–74 was the first to announce the discovery of the islands. Led by Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht of Austria-Hungary on board the schooner Tegetthoff , the expedition's primary goal

27032-420: The ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, has been estimated at 170,000 km . Glacial ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth, holding with ice sheets about 69 percent of the world's freshwater. Many glaciers from temperate , alpine and seasonal polar climates store water as ice during the colder seasons and release it later in the form of meltwater as warmer summer temperatures cause

27250-556: The ice to act as a lever that loosens the rock by lifting it. Thus, sediments of all sizes become part of the glacier's load. If a retreating glacier gains enough debris, it may become a rock glacier , like the Timpanogos Glacier in Utah. Abrasion occurs when the ice and its load of rock fragments slide over bedrock and function as sandpaper, smoothing and polishing the bedrock below. The pulverized rock this process produces

27468-488: The ice would not break up, and the dogs were moved from the ship to kennels on the ice. On 5 October the rudder was raised to a position of safety and the ship, in Scott Hansen's words, was "well and truly moored for the winter". The position was 78°49′N, 132°53′E. On 9 October Fram had her first experience of ice pressure. Archer's design was quickly vindicated as the ship rose and fell, the ice being unable to grip

27686-488: The ice, called seracs . Crevasses can form in several different ways. Transverse crevasses are transverse to flow and form where steeper slopes cause a glacier to accelerate. Longitudinal crevasses form semi-parallel to flow where a glacier expands laterally. Marginal crevasses form near the edge of the glacier, caused by the reduction in speed caused by friction of the valley walls. Marginal crevasses are largely transverse to flow. Moving glacier ice can sometimes separate from

27904-481: The ice. Johansen carved his and Nansen's initials on it, with the latitude and date. A day or two later they spotted the tracks of an Arctic fox , the first trace of a living creature other than their dogs since leaving Fram . Other tracks soon appeared, and Nansen began to believe that land might be near. The latitude calculated on 9 May, 84°3′N, was disappointing—Nansen had hoped they were farther south. However, as May progressed they began to see bear tracks, and by

28122-411: The idea that meltwater, refreezing inside glaciers, caused the glacier to dilate and extend its length. As it became clear that glaciers behaved to some degree as if the ice were a viscous fluid, it was argued that "regelation", or the melting and refreezing of ice at a temperature lowered by the pressure on the ice inside the glacier, was what allowed the ice to deform and flow. James Forbes came up with

28340-418: The increased pressure can facilitate melting. Most importantly, τ D is increased. These factors will combine to accelerate the glacier. As friction increases with the square of velocity, faster motion will greatly increase frictional heating, with ensuing melting – which causes a positive feedback, increasing ice speed to a faster flow rate still: west Antarctic glaciers are known to reach velocities of up to

28558-423: The infrared OH stretching mode of the water molecule. (Liquid water appears blue for the same reason. The blue of glacier ice is sometimes misattributed to Rayleigh scattering of bubbles in the ice.) A glacier originates at a location called its glacier head and terminates at its glacier foot, snout, or terminus . Glaciers are broken into zones based on surface snowpack and melt conditions. The ablation zone

28776-473: The island, and less commonly orcas and narwhales , with the archipelago being located on the northern edge of their summer range. Fin whales were recently confirmed to migrate into the waters. Occasionally there are sightings of bowhead whale . The Russian Arctic stock of this species, ranging from Cape Farewell in Greenland and Svalbard / Spitsbergen areas to East Siberian Sea is considered to be

28994-501: The islands count as a separate international "entity". Activity by radio operators has become less frequent, though it does occasionally occur. Nagurskoye Air Base is located on the Northern part of Alexandra Land. It was extensively upgraded in the mid-2010s to support a greater military presence. Glacier A glacier ( US : / ˈ ɡ l eɪ ʃ ər / ; UK : / ˈ ɡ l æ s i ər , ˈ ɡ l eɪ s i ər / )

29212-586: The islands, but both failed in 1929. Instead the Soviet icebreaker Sedov set out, led by Otto Schmidt , landed in Tikhaya Bay , and began construction of a permanent base. The Soviet government proposed renaming the archipelago Fridtjof Nansen Land in 1930, but the name never came into use. In 1930 the Norwegian Bratvaag Expedition visited the archipelago, but was asked by Soviet authorities to respect Soviet territorial water in

29430-699: The islands. A contributing factor to the low utilization is the difficulty of obtaining permissions and frequent closing of the Kola Bay to accommodate military exercises. The most frequent service is a three-week North Pole tour with Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy , which stops by the islands en route. The most popular destinations are areas with bird cliffs and walrus colonies, such as Cape Flora on Northbrook Island and Cape Rubini on Hooker Island , as well as historical remains such as Nansen's hut on Jackson Island . Tourists are commonly landed by helicopter. For purposes of amateur radio awards

29648-749: The islands. With the Cold War , the islands became off limits for foreigners and two military airfields were built. The islands have been a nature sanctuary since 1994 and became part of the Russian Arctic National Park in 2012. There are two candidates for the discovery of Franz Josef Land. The first was the Norwegian sealing vessel Spidsbergen , with captain Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck and harpooner Johan Petter Aidijärvi. They sailed northeast from Svalbard in 1865 searching for suitable sealing sites, and they found land that

29866-410: The last I see." He was also reading everything he could about Franz Josef Land, his intended destination after the pole. The archipelago had been discovered in 1873 by Julius Payer , and was incompletely mapped. It was, however, apparently the home of countless bears and seals, and Nansen saw it as an excellent food source on his return journey to civilization. On 14 March, with the ship at 84°4′N,

30084-425: The latter because July and August average above freezing, nevertheless, low temperatures remain below freezing year round. The main forces influencing the climate are the glaciation and sea ice. At 81° north the archipelago experiences 141 annual days of midnight sun , from 12 April to 30 August. During the winter it experiences 128 days of polar night from 19 October to 23 February. Abundant cloud cover further cools

30302-400: The latter's nine species being found on all islands. Common plants in wet areas are Alopecurus magellanicus (alpine meadow- foxtail grass ), buttercups and polar willow . Alopecurus magellanicus and Papaver dahlianum are the tallest plants, able to reach heights of 30 centimeters (12 in). More than one hundred taxa of single-cell pelagic algae have been identified around

30520-458: The length of the hull. The ship was rigged as a three-masted schooner , with a total sail area of 6,000 square feet (560 m ). Its auxiliary engine of 220 horse-power was capable of speeds up to 7 knots (13 km/h; 8.1 mph). However, speed and sailing qualities were secondary to the requirement of providing a safe and warm stronghold for Nansen and his crew during a drift that might extend for several years, so particular attention

30738-470: The main enemies. Men began to irritate each other, and fights sometimes broke out. Nansen attempted to start a newspaper, but the project soon fizzled out through lack of interest. Small tasks were undertaken and scientific observations maintained, but there was no urgency. Nansen expressed his frustration in his journal: "I feel I must break through this deadness, this inertia, and find some outlet for my energies." And later: "Can't something happen? Could not

30956-443: The men were struck by trichinosis from eating polar bear meat. Apparent physical evidence of the base was discovered in 2016. The Cold War produced renewed Soviet interest in the islands because of their strategic military significance. The islands were regarded as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier". The site of the former German weather station was selected as the location of a Soviet aerodrome and military base, Nagurskoye . With

31174-538: The methods of travel and survival he developed with Johansen influenced all the polar expeditions, north and south, which followed in the subsequent three decades. In September 1879, Jeannette , an ex- Royal Navy gunboat converted by the US Navy for Arctic exploration, and commanded by George W. De Long , entered the pack ice north of the Bering Strait . She remained ice-bound for nearly two years, drifting to

31392-489: The midst of our hard life." The traditional approach to Arctic exploration had relied on large-scale forces, with a presumption that European techniques could be successfully transplanted into the hostile polar climate. Over the years this strategy had brought little success, and had led to heavy losses of men and ships. By contrast, Nansen's method of using small, trained crews, and harnessing Inuit and Sami expertise in his methods of travel, had ensured that his expedition

31610-679: The most deformation. Velocity increases inward toward the center line and upward, as the amount of deformation decreases. The highest flow velocities are found at the surface, representing the sum of the velocities of all the layers below. Because ice can flow faster where it is thicker, the rate of glacier-induced erosion is directly proportional to the thickness of overlying ice. Consequently, pre-glacial low hollows will be deepened and pre-existing topography will be amplified by glacial action, while nunataks , which protrude above ice sheets, barely erode at all – erosion has been estimated as 5 m per 1.2 million years. This explains, for example,

31828-405: The most endangered of all bowhead populations in the world. The waters around Franz Josef Land appear to be the most important place for this stock. Tourism travel to the archipelago is severely limited. There is no infrastructure to support tourists and the only way to reach the islands is by icebreaker , typically operating out of Murmansk . In 2012 there were only eight successful landings on

32046-459: The most sacred duty devolving on the commander of a naval expedition." Nansen's reputation nevertheless survived; a hundred years after the expedition the British explorer Wally Herbert called the Fram voyage "one of the most inspiring examples of courageous intelligence in the history of exploration". The Fram voyage was Nansen's final expedition. He was appointed to a research professorship at

32264-445: The most sensitive indicators of climate change and are a major source of variations in sea level . A large piece of compressed ice, or a glacier, appears blue , as large quantities of water appear blue , because water molecules absorb other colors more efficiently than blue. The other reason for the blue color of glaciers is the lack of air bubbles. Air bubbles, which give a white color to ice, are squeezed out by pressure increasing

32482-487: The mouth of the Olenyok River , where a second batch of dogs was waiting to be picked up, Fram moved north and east towards the New Siberian Islands. Nansen's hope was to find open water to 80° north latitude and then enter the pack; however, on 20 September ice was sighted just south of 78°. Fram followed the line of the ice before stopping in a small bay beyond the 78° mark. On 28 September it became evident that

32700-421: The new discipline of oceanography , which subsequently became the main focus of Nansen's scientific work. Fram's drift and Nansen's sledge journey proved conclusively that there were no significant land masses between the Eurasian continents and the North Pole, and confirmed the general character of the north polar region as a deep, ice-covered sea. Although Nansen retired from exploration after this expedition,

32918-407: The northwest, while the warmer Novaya Zemlya Current flows from the south. The latter has temperatures over 0.5 °C (32.9 °F), while the bottom water lies below −1.7 °C (28.9 °F). The southern coastal regions of the archipelago experience currents from east to west. Average velocity is between 2 and 5 centimeters (0.79 and 1.97 in) per second. The tidal component in coastal areas

33136-645: The notice of the Royal Geographical Society". The Swedish philanthropist Oscar Dickson , who had financed Baron Nordenskiöld 's conquest of the North-East Passage in 1878–79, was sufficiently impressed to offer to meet Nansen's costs. With Norwegian nationalism on the rise, however, this gesture from their union partner Sweden provoked hostility in the Norwegian press; Nansen decided to rely solely on Norwegian support, and declined Dickson's proposal. Nansen's original estimate for

33354-408: The opening up of Franz Josef Land, the Institute of Geography in Moscow, Stockholm University and Umeå University (Sweden) conducted expeditions to Alexandra Land in August 1990 and August 1991, studying climate- and glacial history by radiocarbon dating raised beaches and antlers from extinct caribou. The work was conducted from a small research base southwest of Nagurskoye, built in 1989. Also in 1990,

33572-457: The originator of the polar drift theory, who was in the town by chance. The pair waited for the weekly mail steamer to take them south, and on 18 August arrived in Hammerfest to an enthusiastic reception. The lack of news about Fram was preying on Nansen's mind; however, on 20 August he received news that Sverdrup had brought the ship to the tiny port of Skjervøy , south of Hammerfest, and

33790-414: The others, and by the beginning of June only seven of the original 28 remained. On 21 June the pair jettisoned all surplus equipment and supplies, planning to travel light and live off the now plentiful supplies of seal and birds. After a day's travel in this manner they decided to rest on a floe, waterproof the kayaks and build up their own strength for the next stage of their journey. They remained camped on

34008-496: The outcome, Ziegler organized a new expedition, for which he appointed Anthony Fiala , second-in-command in the first expedition, as leader. It arrived in 1903 and spent the winter. Their ship, America , was crushed beyond repair in December and disappeared in January. Still, they made two attempts towards the pole, both of which were quickly abandoned. They were forced to stay another year, making yet another unsuccessful attempt at

34226-426: The overbearing personality of the Fram days, and was now subdued and polite, adamant that he would never undertake such a journey again. On 26 July Windward finally arrived; on 7 August, with Nansen and Johansen aboard, she sailed south and on 13 August reached Vardø. A batch of telegrams was sent, informing the world of Nansen's safe return. Before his departure from Fram , Nansen appointed Sverdrup as leader of

34444-467: The pair and shared the first night's camp. The next day, Nansen and Johansen skied on alone. The pair initially traveled mainly over flat snowfields. Nansen had allowed 50 days to cover the 356 nautical miles (660 km; 410 mi) to the pole, requiring an average daily journey of seven nautical miles (13 km; 8.1 mi). On 22 March a sextant observation showed that the pair had travelled 65 nautical miles (120 km; 75 mi) towards

34662-458: The pair celebrated with chocolate and bread from their sledging rations. On New Year's Eve Johansen recorded that Nansen finally adopted the familiar form of address, having until then maintained formalities ("Mr Johansen", "Professor Nansen") throughout the journey. In the New Year they fashioned themselves simple outer clothing—smocks and trousers—from a discarded sleeping bag, in readiness for

34880-437: The pair finally began their polar march. This was their third attempt to leave the ship; on 26 February and again on the 28th, damage to sledges had forced them to return after travelling short distances. After these mishaps Nansen thoroughly overhauled his equipment, minimised the travelling stores, recalculated weights and reduced the convoy to three sledges, before giving the order to start again. A supporting party accompanied

35098-531: The pole and instead found their way to Franz Josef Land, the nearest land known to man. They were thus able to establish that there was no large landmass north of this archipelago. In the meantime the Jackson–Harmsworth Expedition set off in 1894, set up a base on Bell Island , and stayed for the winter. The following season they spent exploring. By pure chance, at Cape Flora in the spring of 1896, Nansen stumbled upon Frederick George Jackson , who

35316-413: The pole at a daily average of over nine nautical miles (17 km; 10 mi). This had been achieved despite very low temperatures, typically around −40 °F (−40 °C), and small scale mishaps including the loss of the sledgemeter that recorded mileage. However, as the surfaces became uneven and made skiing more difficult, their speeds slowed. A sextant reading on 29 March of 85°56′N indicated that

35534-472: The pole, before being evacuated in 1905 by the Terra Nova . The first Russian expedition was carried out in 1901, when the icebreaker Yermak traveled to the islands. The next expedition, led by hydrologist Georgy Sedov , embarked in 1912 but did not reach the archipelago until the following year because of ice. Among its scientific contributions were the first snow measurements of the archipelago, and

35752-477: The pole, but failed to get far. Evelyn Baldwin , sponsored by William Ziegler , organized the Ziegler Polar Expedition of 1901. Setting up a base on Alger Island , he stayed the winter exploring the area, but failed to press northwards. The expedition was largely regarded as an utter failure by the exploration and scientific community, which cited the lack of proper management. Unhappy with

35970-725: The pooling of meltwater at the base of the glacier  — perhaps delivered from a supraglacial lake  — or the simple accumulation of mass beyond a critical "tipping point". Temporary rates up to 90 m (300 ft) per day have occurred when increased temperature or overlying pressure caused bottom ice to melt and water to accumulate beneath a glacier. In glaciated areas where the glacier moves faster than one km per year, glacial earthquakes occur. These are large scale earthquakes that have seismic magnitudes as high as 6.1. The number of glacial earthquakes in Greenland peaks every year in July, August, and September and increased rapidly in

36188-440: The possibility of making a sledge journey with the dogs, from Fram to the pole, though they made no immediate plans. Nansen's first attempts to master dog-driving were an embarrassing failure, but he persevered and gradually achieved better results. He also discovered that the normal cross-country skiing speed was the same as that of dogs pulling loaded sledges. Men could travel under their own power, skiing, rather than riding on

36406-410: The pressure of the layers of ice and snow above it, this granular ice fuses into denser firn. Over a period of years, layers of firn undergo further compaction and become glacial ice. Glacier ice is slightly more dense than ice formed from frozen water because glacier ice contains fewer trapped air bubbles. Glacial ice has a distinctive blue tint because it absorbs some red light due to an overtone of

36624-557: The rest of the expedition, with orders to continue with the drift towards the Atlantic Ocean unless circumstances warranted abandoning the ship and marching for land. Nansen left precise instructions about keeping up the scientific work, especially the ocean depth soundings and the tests for the thickness of the ice. He concluded: "May we meet in Norway, whether it be on board of this vessel or without her." Sverdrup's main task now

36842-511: The resumption of their journey when the weather grew warmer. On 19 May 1896, after weeks of preparation, they were ready. Nansen left a note in the hut to inform a possible finder: "We are going south west, along the land, to cross over to Spitsbergen". For more than two weeks they followed the shoreline southwards. Nothing they saw seemed to fit with their rudimentary map of Franz Josef Land, and Nansen speculated whether they were in uncharted lands between Franz Josef Land and Spitsbergen. On 4 June

37060-472: The runoff to take place on the surface, with streams only forming on the largest islands. The longest river is 19 kilometers (12 mi) long and forms on George Land, while there are several streams on Alexandra Land, the longest being 8.4 kilometers (5.2 mi). There are about one thousand lakes in the archipelago, the majority of which are located on Alexandra Land and George Land. Most lakes are located in depressions caused by glacial erosion, in addition to

37278-439: The same purpose; while failing to locate them, the crew were able to finally determine the non-existence of Peterman Land and King Oscar Land, suspected lands north of the islands. Soviet expeditions were sent almost yearly from 1923. Franz Josef Land had been considered terra nullius – land belonging to no one – but on 15 April 1926 the Soviet Union declared its annexation of the archipelago. Emulating Canada's declaration of

37496-644: The sea floor and consist of marine quartz sandstones and shales. Plate tectonics of the Arctic Ocean created basalt lavas and dolerite sheets and dykes in the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous periods. The land is rising by 2.5 to 3.0 millimeters (0.098 to 0.118 in) per year, due to the melting of the Barents Sea Ice Sheet c. 10,000 years ago. Franz Josef Land is dominated by glaciation, which covers an area of 13,735 square kilometers (5,303 sq mi), or 85 percent of

37714-567: The sea, often with an ice tongue , like Mertz Glacier . Tidewater glaciers are glaciers that terminate in the sea, including most glaciers flowing from Greenland, Antarctica, Baffin , Devon , and Ellesmere Islands in Canada, Southeast Alaska , and the Northern and Southern Patagonian Ice Fields . As the ice reaches the sea, pieces break off or calve, forming icebergs . Most tidewater glaciers calve above sea level, which often results in

37932-500: The shelf of the Barents Sea. The largest island is Prince George Land , which measures 2,741 square kilometers (1,058 sq mi). Three additional islands exceed 1,000 square kilometers (390 sq mi) in size: Wilczek Land , Graham Bell Island and Alexandra Land . Five more islands exceed 500 square kilometers (190 sq mi): Hall Island , Salisbury Island , McClintock Island , Jackson Island and Hooker Island . The smallest 135 islands constitute 0.4 percent of

38150-501: The ship on 3 January 1895, and two days later the crew disembarked, expecting the ship to be crushed. Instead the pressure lessened, and the crew went back on board and resumed preparations for Nansen's journey. After the excitement it was noted that Fram had drifted beyond Greely's Farthest North record of 83°24, and on 8 January was at 83°34′N. On 17 February 1895 Nansen began a farewell letter to his wife, Eva, writing that should he come to grief "you will know that your image will be

38368-449: The ship was launched by Nansen's wife Eva after a brief ceremony. The ship was named Fram , meaning "Forward". For his Greenland expedition of 1888–89 Nansen had departed from the traditional dependence on large-scale personnel, ships and backup, relying instead on a small well-trained group. Using the same principle for the Fram voyage, Nansen chose a party of just twelve from the thousands of applications that poured in from all over

38586-416: The sledge, and loads could be correspondingly increased. This, according to biographer and historian Roland Huntford , amounted to a revolution in polar travel methods. On 19 May, two days after the celebrations for Norway's National Day , Fram passed 81°, indicating that the ship's northerly speed was slowly increasing, though it was still barely a mile (1.6 km) a day. With a growing conviction that

38804-433: The southernmost island of the archipelago. Jackson's own account records that his first reaction to this sudden meeting was to assume the figure to be a shipwrecked sailor, perhaps from the expedition's supply ship Windward which was due to call that summer. As he approached, Jackson saw "a tall man, wearing a soft felt hat, loosely made, voluminous clothes and long shaggy hair and beard, all reeking with black grease". After

39022-475: The southernmost islands. Arctic desert soils occur on the eastern group islands, while the areas near the edge of the glaciers have bog-like arctic soil. The flora varies between islands, based on the natural conditions. On some islands, vegetation is limited to lichen growing on stones. Vegetation typically covers five to ten percent of the ground surface, with notable exceptions under bird colonies where it can reach one hundred percent. Vegetation varies with

39240-409: The stagnant ice above, forming a bergschrund . Bergschrunds resemble crevasses but are singular features at a glacier's margins. Crevasses make travel over glaciers hazardous, especially when they are hidden by fragile snow bridges . Below the equilibrium line, glacial meltwater is concentrated in stream channels. Meltwater can pool in proglacial lakes on top of a glacier or descend into the depths of

39458-456: The start of the expedition, and Johansen 13 pounds (5.9 kg). In honour of his rescuer, Nansen named the island where he had wintered "Frederick Jackson Island". For the next six weeks Nansen had little to do but await the arrival of Windward , worrying that he might have to spend the winter at Cape Flora, and sometimes regretting that he and Johansen had not pressed on to Spitsbergen. Johansen noted in his journal that Nansen had changed from

39676-490: The start of the voyage Nansen decided to deviate from his original plan: instead of following Jeannette's route to the New Siberian Islands by way of the Bering Strait, he would make a shorter journey, taking Nordenskiöld's North-East Passage along the northern coast of Siberia. Fram left Christiania on 24 June 1893, seen on her way by a cannon salute from the fort and the cheers of thousands of well-wishers. This

39894-423: The stress being applied, ice will act as an elastic solid. Ice needs to be at least 30 m (98 ft) thick to even start flowing, but once its thickness exceeds about 50 m (160 ft) (160 ft), stress on the layer above will exceeds the inter-layer binding strength, and then it'll move faster than the layer below. This means that small amounts of stress can result in a large amount of strain, causing

40112-438: The surface snowpack may experience seasonal melting. A subpolar glacier includes both temperate and polar ice, depending on the depth beneath the surface and position along the length of the glacier. In a similar way, the thermal regime of a glacier is often described by its basal temperature. A cold-based glacier is below freezing at the ice-ground interface and is thus frozen to the underlying substrate. A warm-based glacier

40330-423: The temperatures can change by 20 °C (36 °F) within hours. Coastal stations experience mean January temperatures of between −20 °C (−4 °F) and −30 °C (−22 °F), varying heavily from year to year depending on the degree of cycles in weather patterns. During summer the temperatures are a lot more even and average at between 0 °C (32 °F) and 3 °C (37 °F) at Hayes Island. Fog

40548-534: The total cost of the expedition was 300,000  kr . After giving a passionate speech before the Parliament of Norway ( Storting ), Nansen was awarded a grant of NOK 200,000; the balance was raised from private contributions which included 20,000 kroner from King Oscar II of Norway and Sweden . The Royal Geographical Society in London gave £300 (about NOK 6,000). Unfortunately, Nansen had underestimated

40766-489: The two men signed the contract. Nansen wanted the ship in one year; he was eager to get away before anyone else could adopt his ideas and forestall him. The ship's most significant external feature was the roundness of the hull, designed so that there was nothing upon which the ice could get a grip. Bow, stern and keel were rounded off, and the sides smoothed so that, in Nansen's words, the vessel would "slip like an eel out of

40984-400: The usual hot punch and consequent hangover", and wrote that he was "getting more and more disgusted with drunkenness". By mid-March 1896, the position was 84°25′N, 12°50′E, placing the ship north of Spitsbergen. On 13 June a lead opened and, for the first time in nearly three years, Fram became a living ship. It was a further two months, on 13 August 1896, before she found open water and, with

41202-417: The weight of the ice is supported by the underlying water, and the glacier is afloat. Glaciers may also move by basal sliding , where the base of the glacier is lubricated by the presence of liquid water, reducing basal shear stress and allowing the glacier to slide over the terrain on which it sits. Meltwater may be produced by pressure-induced melting, friction or geothermal heat . The more variable

41420-470: The west, he considered the implications of the discovery of the Jeannette items, along with further finds of driftwood and other debris from Siberia or Alaska that had been identified along the Greenland coast. "Putting all this together," Nansen said, "we are driven to the conclusion that a current flows ... from the Siberian Arctic Sea to the east coast of Greenland," probably passing across

41638-442: The wind direction, due to the effect of the Earth's rotation. This discovery would be developed by Nansen's pupil, Vagn Walfrid Ekman , who later became the leading oceanographer of his time. From its programme of scientific observation the expedition provided the first detailed oceanographic information from the area; in due course the scientific data gathered during the Fram voyage would run to six published volumes. Throughout

41856-527: The winter 1898–9 at Cape Heller on Wilczek Land , but insufficient fuel caused the latter to die. Wellman returned the following year, but the polar expedition itself was quickly abandoned when they lost most of their equipment. Italian nobleman Luigi Amedeo organized the next expedition in 1899, on the Stella Polare . They stayed the winter, and in February and again in March 1900 set out towards

42074-538: The winter on the islands. The polar bear population of Franz Josef Land lies within the Barents Sea subpopulation, which also includes polar bears inhabiting Svalbard and the western coast of Novaya Zemlya . In 2004, the Barents Sea subpopulation was estimated at 2,650. There is also a population of Arctic fox , which typically have their territories near seabird habitats. There are no caribou living on Franz Josef Land today. However, radiocarbon dating of shed antlers found on Alexandra Land in 1990 has shown that there

42292-424: The world. One applicant was the 20-year-old Roald Amundsen , future conqueror of the South Pole, whose mother stopped him from going. The English explorer Frederick Jackson applied, but Nansen wanted only Norwegians, so Jackson organised his own expedition to Franz Josef Land. To captain the ship and act as the expedition's second-in-command Nansen chose Otto Sverdrup , an experienced sailor who had taken part in

42510-412: Was a population of caribou living on the island around 4000 to 2000 years ago. It is likely that the population died out when the climate became colder. As a declared marine mammal sanctuary, the area around the islands has a rich biodiversity of rare marine mammals. Three species of seals habit the archipelago. Harp seal is the most common, although it breeds in the White Sea . Slightly less common

42728-545: Was able to transport him back to Norway. Nansen and Jackson explored the northern, eastern, and western portions of the islands. Once the basic geography of Franz Josef Land had become apparent, expeditions shifted to using the archipelago as a basis to reach the North Pole. The first such attempt was conducted by the National Geographic Society -sponsored American journalist Walter Wellman in 1898. The two Norwegians, Paul Bjørvig and Bernt Bentsen, stayed

42946-414: Was already captivated by the frozen north; two years earlier he had experienced a four-month voyage on the sealer Viking , which had included three weeks trapped in drifting ice. An expert skier, Nansen was making plans to lead the first crossing of the Greenland icecap, an objective delayed by the demands of his academic studies, but triumphantly achieved in 1888–89. Through these years Nansen remembered

43164-400: Was an 1893–1896 attempt by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen to reach the geographical North Pole by harnessing the natural east–west current of the Arctic Ocean . Departing in 1893, Fram drifted from the New Siberian Islands for one and a half years before Nansen became impatient and set out to reach the North Pole on skis with Hjalmar Johansen . Eventually, they gave up on reaching

43382-405: Was apparent that they were in an archipelago, but what they could see bore no relation to their incomplete map of Franz Josef Land. They could only continue south in the hopes of finding a geographical feature they could pinpoint with certainty. On 16 August Nansen tentatively identified a headland as Cape Felder, marked on Payer's maps as on the western coast of Franz Josef Land. Nansen's objective

43600-407: Was circumnavigated, people landed on Victoria Island, and a topographical map was completed. In 1934–35 geological and glaciological expeditions were carried out, cartographic flights were flown, and up to sixty people stayed the winters between 1934 and 1936, which also saw the first birth. The first drifting ice station was set up out of Rudolf Island in 1936. An airstrip was then constructed on

43818-400: Was completed without a single casualty or major mishap. Although it did not achieve the objective of reaching the North Pole, the expedition made major geographical and scientific discoveries. Sir Clements Markham , president of Britain's Royal Geographical Society , declared that the expedition had resolved "the whole problem of Arctic geography". It was now established that the North Pole

44036-494: Was established there. Activity at Tikhaya Bay was closed in 1959. Because of the islands' military significance, the Soviet Union closed off the area to foreign researchers, although Soviet researchers carried out various expeditions, including in geophysics, studies of the ionosphere , marine biology, botany, ornithology, and glaciology. The Soviet Union opened up the archipelago for international activities from 1990, with foreigners having fairly straightforward access. As part of

44254-427: Was finally ready on 28 September, and was to be their home for the next eight months. Their situation was uncomfortable, but not life-threatening; there was a plentiful supply of bear, walrus and seal to stock up their larder. The chief enemy was boredom; to pass time they were reduced to reading Nansen's sailing almanac and navigation tables by the light of their blubber lamp, and then reading them again. At Christmas

44472-622: Was given the opportunity, through Nansen's influence, to join Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1910. Johansen quarreled violently with Amundsen at the expedition's base camp, and was omitted from the South Pole party. He died by suicide within a year of his return from Antarctica. Otto Sverdrup remained as captain of Fram , and in 1898 took the ship, with a new crew, to the Canadian Arctic for four years' exploration. In later years Sverdrup helped to raise funds that enabled

44690-473: Was in the 1873 Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition led by Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht , who named the area after Emperor Franz Joseph I . In 1926, the Soviet Union annexed the islands, which were known at the time as Fridtjof Nansen Land , and settled small outposts for research and military purposes. The Kingdom of Norway rejected the claim and several private expeditions were sent to

44908-775: Was informed that messages signed by Nansen had been discovered, "sent from the North Pole". In February 1896 The New York Times ran a dispatch from Irkutsk , in Siberia, from a supposed Nansen agent, claiming that Nansen had reached the pole and found land there. Charles P. Daly of the American Geographical Society called this "startling news" and, "if true, the most important discovery that has been made in ages." Experts were sceptical of all such reports, and Nansen's arrival in Vardø quickly put paid to them. In Vardø, he and Johansen were greeted by Professor Mohn,

45126-404: Was located not on land, nor on a permanent ice sheet, but on shifting, unpredictable pack ice. The Arctic Ocean was a deep basin, with no significant land masses north of the Eurasian continent—any hidden expanse of land would have blocked the free movement of ice. Nansen had proved the polar drift theory; furthermore, he had noted the presence of a Coriolis force driving the ice to the right of

45344-449: Was most likely Franz Josef Land. The account is believed to be factual, but an announcement of the discovery was never made, and their sighting therefore remained unknown to subsequent explorers. It was at the time common to keep newly discovered areas secret, as their discovery was aimed at exploiting them for sealing and whaling, and exposure would cause competitors to flock to the site. Russian scientist N. G. Schilling proposed in 1865 that

45562-511: Was now continuing with her to Tromsø. The next day, Nansen and Johansen sailed into Tromsø and joined their comrades in an emotional reunion. After days of celebration and recuperation the ship left Tromsø on 26 August. The voyage south was a triumphal procession, with receptions at every port. Fram finally arrived in Christiania on 9 September, escorted into the harbour by a squadron of warships and welcomed by thousands—the largest crowds

45780-415: Was now to reach a hut with supplies at a location known as Eira Harbour, at the southern end of the islands. An expedition led by Benjamin Leigh Smith had constructed it in 1881. However, contrary winds and loose ice made further progress in the kayak hazardous, and on 28 August Nansen decided that, with another polar winter drawing near, they should stay where they were and await the following spring. As

45998-553: Was paid to the insulation of the living quarters. At around 400  gross register tonnage , the ship was considerably larger than Nansen had first anticipated, with an overall length of 128 feet (39 m) and a breadth of 36 feet (11 m), a ratio of just over three to one, giving her an unusually stubby appearance. This odd shape was explained by Archer: "A ship that is built with exclusive regard to its suitability for [Nansen's] object must differ essentially from any known vessel." On 6 October 1892, at Archer's yard at Larvik ,

46216-511: Was reduced from 70 to 12. The archipelago and the surrounding waters were declared a nature reserve in April 1994. The opening of the archipelago also saw the introduction of tourism, most of which takes place on Russian-operated icebreakers. In 2011, in a move to better accommodate tourism in the archipelago, the Russian Arctic National Park was expanded to include Franz Josef Land. However, in August 2019, Russia abruptly withdrew its approval for

46434-411: Was so determined to join the expedition that he agreed to sign on as stoker , the only position by then available. Likewise Adolf Juell, with 20 years' experience at sea as mate and captain, took the post of cook on the Fram voyage. Ivar Mogstad was an official at Gaustad psychiatric hospital , but his technical abilities as a handyman and mechanic impressed Nansen. The oldest man in the party, at 40,

46652-497: Was the chief engineer, Anton Amundsen (no relation of Roald). The second engineer, Lars Pettersen, kept his Swedish nationality from Nansen, and although it was soon discovered by his shipmates, he was allowed to remain with the expedition, the only non-Norwegian in the party. The remaining crew members were Peter Henriksen, Bernhard Nordahl and Bernt Bentzen, the last–named joining the expedition in Tromsø at very short notice. Before

46870-511: Was the first of a series of farewells as Fram sailed round the coast and moved northward, reaching Bergen on 1 July (where there was a great banquet in Nansen's honour), Trondheim on 5 July and Tromsø, north of the Arctic Circle , a week later. The last Norwegian port of call was Vardø , where Fram arrived on 18 July. After the final provisions were taken on board, Nansen, Sverdrup, Hansen and Blessing spent their last hours ashore in

47088-543: Was to find the Northeast Passage and its secondary goal to reach the North Pole . Starting in July 1872, the vessel drifted from Novaya Zemlya to a new landmass, which they named in honor of Franz Joseph I (1830–1916), Emperor of Austria . The expedition contributed significantly to the mapping and exploration of the islands. The next expedition to spot the archipelago was the Dutch Expedition for

47306-415: Was to keep his crew busy. He ordered a thorough spring cleaning , and set a party to chip away some of the surrounding ice which was threatening to destabilise the ship. Although there was no immediate danger to Fram , Sverdrup oversaw the repair and overhaul of sledges, and the organisation of provisions should it after all be necessary to abandon ship and march to land. With the arrival of warmer weather as

47524-425: Was well known for a particular hull design that combined seaworthiness with a shallow draught , and had pioneered the design of "double-ended" craft in which the conventional stern was replaced by a point, increasing manoeuvrability. Nansen records that Archer made "plan after plan of the projected ship; one model after another was prepared and abandoned". Finally, agreement was reached on a design, and on 9 June 1891

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