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30-650: The Kolyma is frozen to depths of several metres for about 250 days each year, becoming free of ice only in early June, until October. The Kolyma begins at the confluence of the Kulu and the Ayan-Yuryakh (Kolyma a natural continuation of Ayan-Yuryakh). The confluence happens in the Okhotsk-Kolyma Upland (Охотско-Колымское нагорье), which lies within the watershed that separates the Kolyma basin and

60-471: A famous anthology about life in Gulag camps by Varlam Shalamov , The Kolyma Tales . After the camps were closed, state subsidies , local industries and communication dwindled to almost nothing. Many people have migrated, but those who remain in the area make a living by fishing and hunting. In small fishing settlements, fish are sometimes stored in caves carved from permafrost . The last Americans to visit

90-675: A farm. There were 56 inhabitants in 2021. The source of the river is in the eastern part of the Suntar Khayata Range , in Khabarovsk Krai. The river flows roughly northeastwards across mountainous terrain, then it bends southwards and describes a wide arch northwards. In its lower course the Kulu flows through the Upper Kolyma Highlands . It divides into branches across a floodplain and finally it meets

120-506: A flood or other weather event buried the whole area. Since the rodents had placed the larders at the level of the permafrost , the material froze almost immediately, and did not thaw out at any time since. More than 600,000 fruits and seeds were located at the site. The Duvanny Yar section exposes the yedoma ice complex or suite and is studied by many scientists as it represents a key strategic cross-section of Late Quaternary East Siberian stratigraphy and "an important key section for

150-591: Is a perennial that grows on stony cliffs and sandy shores. S. stenophylla is one of a few Beringian plant species that did not establish itself in North America. The specific epithet is derived from the Greek stenos (narrow) and phyllon (leaf) to give "narrow-leaved". A team of scientists from Russia, Hungary and the United States recovered frozen Silene stenophylla seeds and remains from

180-459: Is surprising that viable material could be recovered, she added. The Russian scientists speculated that the tissue cells were rich in sucrose which acted as a preservative. They also noted that DNA damage caused by gamma radiation from natural ground radioactivity at the site was unusually low for the plant material's age and is comparable to levels observed in 1300-year-old lotus ( Nelumbo nucifera ) seeds proven to germinate. Probert hopes that

210-581: The Arctic Ocean . The Kolyma is 2,129 kilometres (1,323 mi) long. The area of its basin is 647,000 square kilometres (250,000 sq mi). The average discharge at Kolymskoye is 3,254 m/s (114,900 cu ft/s), with a high of 26,201 m/s (925,300 cu ft/s) reported in June 1985, and a low of 30.6 m/s (1,080 cu ft/s) in April 1979. The main tributaries of

240-527: The Pleistocene in 2007, while investigating about 70 ancient ground squirrel (genera Urocitellus and Geomys ssp ) hibernation burrows or caches, hidden in permanently frozen loess -ice deposits located at Duvanny Yar, on the right bank of the lower Kolyma River in Sakha Republic , northeastern Siberia, in the plant's present-day range. Using radiocarbon dating , the age of the seeds

270-595: The Russian Far East is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Silene stenophylla Silene stenophylla is a species of flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae . Commonly called narrow-leafed campion , it is a species in the genus Silene . It grows in the Arctic tundra of far eastern Siberia and the mountains of northern Japan. Frozen samples, estimated via radiocarbon dating to be around 32,000 years old, were discovered in

300-632: The Ayan-Yuryakh forming the Kolyma. The Kulu is fed by rain and snow. The river freezes in October and thaws at the end of May. Floods are common in the summer and early autumn. Its main tributaries are the Kenyelichi and Hinike from the right; and the Khujakh, Neryuchi and Arga-Yuryakh from the left. There are more than 800 lakes in the Kulu basin. This article related to a river in

330-600: The Kolyma and met Chukchis for the first time. In 1643 he returned to the Indigirka, sent his yasak (tribute) to Yakutsk and went back to the Alazeya. In 1645 he returned to the Lena where he met a party and learned that he had been appointed prikazchik (land administrator) of the Kolyma. He returned east and died in early 1646. In the winter of 1641–42 Mikhail Stadukhin , accompanied by Semyon Dezhnyov , went overland to

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360-590: The Kolyma are, from source to mouth: In the last 75-kilometre (47 mi) stretch, the Kolyma divides into two large branches. There are many islands at the mouth of the Kolyma before it meets the East Siberian sea. The main ones are: In 1640 Dimitry Zyryan (also called Yarilo or Yerilo) went overland to the Indigirka . In 1641 he sailed down the Indigirka, went east and up the Alazeya . Here they heard of

390-661: The Kolyma during the Soviet era, before perestroika , were the crew of the sailing schooner Nanuk in August 1929, whose visit was captured in a film taken by the Nanuk owner's 18-year-old daughter, Marion Swenson. The first two Americans to visit the Kolyma after the Nanuk' s visit were writer Wallace Kaufman and journalist Rebecca Clay, who traveled by cutter from Ziryanka to Green Cape in August 1991. Kaufman and his daughter Sylvan and CPA Letty Collins Magdanz also travelled part of

420-601: The Kolyma in August 1992, the first American visitors since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Both trips were arranged by North-East Scientific and Industrial Center: Ecocenter to try out an ecotourism route which was found to be impractical. In February 2012, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported that scientists had grown plants from 30,000-year-old Silene stenophylla fruit, which

450-794: The area during the Last Glacial Period . In February 2012, a team of scientists from the Institute of Cell Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences announced they had successfully regenerated specimens from fruit that had been frozen for 31,800 (±300) years according to their radiocarbon dating. The accomplishment surpasses the previous record for the oldest plant material brought back to life, of 2000 years set by Judean date palm ( Phoenix dactylifera ) seeds. The team led by David Gilichinsky used material recovered in 2007 by Stakhov et al. Gilichinsky, who for many years

480-573: The basin of the Kolyma (among other Far-eastern Siberian rivers) on behalf of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Barr, 1980). During one year and two days the expedition covered 25,000 kilometres (16,000 mi), of which 4,200 kilometres (2,600 mi) were up rivers, carrying out geodesic surveys en route. The Kolyma is known for its Gulag labour camps and gold mining , both of which have been extensively documented since Joseph Stalin –era Soviet archives opened. The river gives its title to

510-643: The basins of rivers flowing into the Sea of Okhotsk . Kolyma flows across the Upper Kolyma Highlands roughly southwards in its upper course. Leaving the mountainous areas it flows roughly northwards across the Kolyma Lowland , a vast plain dotted with thousands of lakes, part of the greater East Siberian Lowland . The river empties into the Kolyma Gulf of the East Siberian Sea , a division of

540-472: The confluence of the Kulu and the Ayan-Yuryakh . The name of the river originated in the Chukchi word kuul — meaning "deep river". The Kulu flows through desolate territory; the only settlement by the river is Kulu , a village which had a population of 1,345 inhabitants in 1977, but which was abolished in 2008. In 2017 it was revived by two families who resettled the abandoned village and established

570-522: The electricity to the region including Magadan. the Kolyma dam is an earthen dam some 150 ft high. Air circulation tubes carry frigid winter air into the core of the dam where frozen earth stabilizes the structure. Kolyma Ges. said it was the largest dam ever built in a permafrost region. In 1992 a new hydropower plant was under construction at Ust-Srednekan, the Ust-Srednekan Hydroelectric Plant . Larch forests cleared for

600-676: The palaeo-environmental history of the Late Pleistocene Beringia Land, the non-glaciated landmass between the Taymyr Peninsula and Alaska." Near Duvanny Yar is the Pleistocene Park , ( Russian : Плейстоценовый парк ), a nature reserve on the Kolyma River south of Chersky where an attempt is being made to recreate the northern subarctic steppe grassland ecosystem that flourished in

630-550: The plant. The reasons for the observed variations are not known. Seeds produced by the regenerated plants germinated at a 100% success rate, compared with 90% for modern plants. According to Robin Probert of the Millennium Seed Bank , the demonstration is "by far the most extraordinary example of extreme longevity for material from higher plants" to date. It is not surprising to find living material this old, but

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660-419: The researchers attempted to germinate mature seeds recovered from the fruit. When these attempts failed, they turned to the fruit itself and were able to culture adult plants from placental tissue . The team grew 36 specimens from the tissue. The plants looked identical to modern specimens until they flowered, at which time the petals were observed to be longer and more widely spaced than modern versions of

690-610: The reservoir were cut in winter when the trunks were frozen and easily snapped. The wood was sold for pulp. There are only a few bridges over the river, including at Ust-Srednekan , at Sinegorye and at Debin (which carries the Kolyma Highway ). Kulu (river) The Kulu ( Russian : Кулу ) is a river in Khabarovsk Krai and Magadan Oblast , Russia . It is a right tributary of the Kolyma river , which forms at

720-433: The same area as current living specimens, and in 2012, a team of scientists successfully regenerated a plant from the samples. Silene stenophylla grows in the Arctic tundra of far eastern Siberia and the mountains of northern Japan. It is typically 5–25 cm (2–10 in) tall, has narrow leaves, and a large calyx . It blooms during the summer and has incised petals that are lilac, light pink, or white in color. It

750-469: The techniques developed in the resurrection of Silene stenophylla may one day be used to resurrect extinct species. Paleontologist Grant Zazula, who has previously disproven claims of ancient regeneration, said: "This discovery raises the bar incredibly in terms of our understanding in terms of the viability of ancient life in the permafrost." The successful regeneration of the Silene stenophylla plants

780-429: The upper Indigirka. He spent the next winter there, built boats and sailed down the Indigirka and east to the Alazeya where he met Zyryan. Zyryan and Dezhnyov stayed at the Alazeya, while Stadukhin went east, reaching the Kolyma in the summer of 1644. They built a zimovye (winter cabin), probably at Srednekolymsk , and returned to Yakutsk in late 1645. In 1892–94 Baron Eduard Von Toll carried out geological surveys in

810-603: Was estimated at between 20,000 and 40,000 years, dating the seeds to the Pleistocene epoch. The embryos were damaged, possibly by the animals' activity. The research team presented their findings at the Botany & Plant Biology conference in Chicago, Illinois in 2007. The burrows were found 20–40 m (66–131 ft) below the present-day surface. Usually the rodents would eat the food in their larders , but in this case

840-733: Was head of the Geocryology Lab in the Institute for Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, died in February 2012, just before the paper was published. He was recognized by the team as a "pioneer in studying microorganisms in Siberian and Antarctic permafrost, his achievement attracted scientists from all over the world to research on permafrost life systems." Initially,

870-440: Was started in the 1980s by Kolyma Gestroi and both the plant and the town of Sinegorye were built under the supervision of chief engineer Oleg Kogadovski. The town included an olympic sized swimming pool, an underground rifle range, and many amenities absent in most other small Russian towns. Kogadovski said that in order to attract and employ good talent in such a remote place, the town had to be exceptional. The dam provides most of

900-474: Was stored in squirrel burrows near the banks of the Kolyma river and preserved in permafrost. Settlements at the Kolyma river include (listed downstream) Sinegorye , Debin , Ust-Srednekan , Seymchan , Zyryanka , Srednekolymsk and Chersky . The Kolyma Hydroelectric Station is a hydropower plant at Sinegorye , downstream from the Kolyma Reservoir in the upper part of the river. The plant

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