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78-609: Kunashir is separated by the Catherine Strait (Kunashiri Suido) from the island of Iturup , located 22 km northeast; Kunashir Strait (upper Nemuro Kaikyo ) from Shiretoko Peninsula (Hokkaido Island), located 25 km to the west; Izmena Strait (Notsuke Suido or lower Nemuro Kaikyo) from Notsuke Peninsula (Hokkaido Island), located 16 km to the southwest; and by the South Kuril Strait (Yuzhno-Kurilski Proliv, Minami Chishima Kaikyo) from Shikotan and

156-685: A Csa climate well inland to ensure hot summers and cold winters. They are generally found in the highly elevated areas of south-eastern Turkey ( Hakkâri ), north-western Iran, northern Iraq, parts of Central Asia , parts of the High Atlas mountain range in central Morocco and very small parts of the Intermountain West in the United States. This climate zone does not exist at all in the Southern Hemisphere, where

234-433: A 2.3-kilometre-long (7,500 ft), 42-metre-wide (138 ft) runway and can receive Antonov An-74-200 aircraft. It also has a military use. The Burevestnik military airfield 60 km (37 mi) to the south, in the past received civilian aircraft as well, but was often closed because of fog. Burevestnik is now a reserve airfield for the new airport. On February 2, 2018, PBS NewsHour reported that Russia announced it

312-614: A classification). More extreme and inland humid continental climates, sometimes known as "hyper-continental" climates, are found in northeast China , southern Siberia , Mongolia , Kazakhstan , most of the southern interior of Canada , and the Upper Midwest , where temperatures in the winter resemble those of adjacent subarctic climates (with long, drier, generally very cold winters) but have longer and generally warmer summers (in occasional cases, hot summers). A more moderate variety, found in places like Honshu , east-central China,

390-484: A dozen calc-alkaline volcanoes running NE to SW form the backbone of the island, the highest being Stokap (1,634 m) in the central part of Iturup. The shores of the island are high and abrupt. The vegetation mostly consists of spruce , larch , pine , fir , and mixed deciduous forests with alder , lianas and Kuril bamboo underbrush . The mountains are covered with birch and Siberian Dwarf Pine scrub, herbaceous flowers (including Fragaria iturupensis ,

468-546: A fishery and trading site called Kunashiri-basho ( 国後場所 ) in 1754. Its headquarters was located in Tomari (present-day Golovnino) and administered Kunashir, Iturup , and Urup . In 1789 Kunashir Island was one of the settings of the Menashi-Kunashiri Battle in which native Ainu revolted against Yamato Japanese tradespeople and colonists. Russian navigator Vasily Golovnin attempted to map and explore

546-516: A marked reduction in wintry precipitation, which increases the chances of a wintertime drought ( w ). Snowfall occurs in all areas with a humid continental climate and in many such places is more common than rain during the height of winter. In places with sufficient wintertime precipitation, the snow cover is often deep. Most summer rainfall occurs during thunderstorms , and in North America and Asia an occasional tropical cyclone (or

624-632: A mid to late Miocene deformation event at Kunashir, associated with folding of the Kunashir 'basement' and emplacement of Miocene intrusions, accompanied by at least 1.5 km of uplift and denudation. Four modern and active (Pleistocene to Holocene) stratovolcanoes have shaped the modern landscape of Kunashir Island. These volcanoes, characterised by a typical alternation of lava flows and tuff deposits, exhibited mainly basaltic-andesitic to andesitic compositions, with minor amounts of more differentiated magmas of dacitic affinity. This modern magmatic activity

702-739: A subarctic climate. In the Southern Hemisphere , it exists in well-defined areas only in the Southern Alps of New Zealand , in the Snowy Mountains of Australia in Kiandra, New South Wales and the Andes Mountains of Argentina and Chile . Since climate regimes tend to be dominated by vegetation of one region with relatively homogenous ecology, those that project climate change remap their results in

780-526: A thermal profile, but because of semi-arid precipitation portions of it are grouped into the BSk category. In Europe , it is found in much of Central Europe : Germany (in the east and southeast part of the country), Austria (generally below 700 m (2,297 ft)), Poland , Czech Republic , Slovakia , Hungary (generally above 100 m (328 ft)), Croatia (mostly Slavonia region), in much of Eastern Europe : Ukraine (the whole country except

858-725: A wide range of compositions from basalt to rhyolite, with a predominance of (basaltic) andesites (Martynov et al.). The geology of Kunashir Island could be elucidated from this perspective by delineating two structural levels. The lower level, termed the Lower Complex, was characterised by yellowish to yellow-grey tuffs, tuffaceous sandstones and breccias, mainly of felsic to medium composition. Numerous subvolcanic stocks and plugs of andesite, dacite and rhyolite intruded these formations, with deeper intrusive rocks of granodiorite porphyry composition and texture (Vergunov; Vergunov and Vlasov; Sergeev; Piskunov and Rybin). The upper level, termed

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936-622: Is humid continental with very heavy precipitation especially in the autumn and a strong seasonal lag with maximum temperatures in August and September. The vegetation mostly consists of spruce , pine , fir , and mixed deciduous forests with lianas and Kuril bamboo underbrush. The mountains are covered with birch and Siberian Dwarf Pine scrub, herbaceous flowers or bare rocks. Tree cores of century-old oaks (Quercus crispula) were found in July 2001 on Kunashiri Island. Kunashir, along with

1014-447: Is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers, and cold (sometimes severely cold in the northern areas) and snowy winters. Precipitation is usually distributed throughout the year, but often these regions do have dry seasons. The definition of this climate in terms of temperature

1092-574: Is an amalgamation of the Dokuchaev, Valentina and Orlov massifs. The Valentina Massif, a tonalite-porphyry stock along the Okhotsk coast in the northern part of Kunashir, showed tectonic rather than intrusive contacts. A Pliocene age for Dokuchaev has been proposed on the basis of geological and K-Ar data, with rocks from the Dokuchaev complex having reported K-Ar ages of 6.5e4.2 Ma, corresponding to late Miocene to early Pliocene age (Rybin). The climate

1170-442: Is as follows: the mean temperature of the coldest month must be below 0 °C (32.0 °F) or −3 °C (26.6 °F) depending on the isotherm, and there must be at least four months whose mean temperatures are at or above 10 °C (50 °F). In addition, the location in question must not be semi-arid or arid . The cooler Dfb , Dwb , and Dsb subtypes are also known as hemiboreal climates. Although amount of snowfall

1248-430: Is fishing. The island has a port next to Yuzhno-Kurilsk. Kunashir Island enjoys a Mendeleevskaya GeoPP geothermal power plant with the capacity of 1.8 MW. The island is served by Mendeleyevo Airport . After the 1994 earthquake , about one-third of Kunashir Island's population left and did not return. By 2002, the island's population was approximately 7,800. The total population of the disputed Kuril islands at that time

1326-521: Is found in northern Kazakhstan , southern Siberia , parts of Mongolia , northern China , and highland elevations in the Koreas . Like its hot-summer counterpart, these climates are typically dry in the winter and bitterly cold due to the Siberian High (often with winter temperatures comparable to their nearby subarctic climates ), while summers are warm and long enough to avoid classification as

1404-467: Is less extreme than the most inland hyper-continental variety. Using the Köppen climate classification , a climate is classified as humid continental when the temperature of the coldest month is below 0 °C [32.0 °F] or −3 °C [26.6 °F] and there must be at least four months whose mean temperatures are at or above 10 °C (50 °F). These temperatures were not arbitrary. In Europe,

1482-565: Is less seasonally uniform in the west. The western states of the western United States (namely Montana , Wyoming , parts of southern Idaho , most of Lincoln County in Eastern Washington , parts of Colorado , parts of Utah , isolated parts of northern New Mexico , western Nebraska , and parts of western North and South Dakota ) have thermal regimes which fit the Dfa climate type, but are quite dry, and are generally grouped with

1560-537: Is made up of volcanic and crystalline rocks. Kunashir, the southernmost island of the Kuril Arc, is 123 km long (NE to SW), 7 to 30 km wide and has an area of 1,490 km². The island comprised several volcanic features, including active ones such as Tyatya (1,819 m), Ruruy (1,485 m), Mendeleev (886 m) and Golovnin (541 m). The terrain of Kunashir was rugged and mountainous, with young geomorphology, steep slopes and numerous waterfalls. Asymmetry in relief

1638-404: Is not a factor used in defining the humid continental climate, snow during the winter in this type of climate is almost a guarantee, either intermittently throughout the winter months near the poleward or coastal margins, or persistently throughout the winter months elsewhere in the climate zone. Humid continental climates are generally found between latitudes 40° N and 60° N , within

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1716-495: Is notable, with the western (Okhotsk) shore being steep and elevated, in contrast to the eastern (Pacific) shore, which has a more level and flat topography. In contrast to the Japan Arc, the absolute timing of the evolution of the primary Kuril Arc system has received comparatively little attention, particularly with respect to modern geochronological techniques. A recent study (de Grave, 2015) aimed to fill this gap by presenting

1794-724: Is noted during the autumn of deciduous forests. In the poleward direction, these climates transition into subarctic climates featuring short summers (and usually very cold winters) allowing only conifer trees. Moving equatorword, the hot-summer continental climates grade into humid subtropical climates (chiefly in North America and Asia) while the warm-summer continental climates grade into oceanic climates (chiefly in Europe), both of which have milder winters where average temperatures stay above 0°C (or -3°C). Some continental climates with lower precipitation (chiefly in Central Asia and

1872-532: Is now sometimes specifically conflated with Iturup despite its placement on most maps more closely matching Kunashiri . The Japanese are first recorded reaching Iturup in 1661, when Shichirobei and his company drifted there by accident. Following Bering and Spanberg's voyages under the Russian flag, a settlement was established in the late 18th century, prompting the Japanese to establish a garrison around 1800 at

1950-701: Is to be found in northern China including Manchuria and parts of North China , south-east Russia , and over much of the Korean Peninsula ; it has the Köppen classification Dwa . Much of central Asia , northwestern China , and southern Mongolia has a thermal regime similar to that of the Dfa climate type, but these regions receive so little precipitation that they are more often classified as steppes ( BSk ) or deserts ( BWk ). Dsa climates are rare; they are generally restricted to elevated areas adjacent to mid-latitude Mediterranean climate regions with

2028-575: The Ainu . Various European explorers passed the area over the years but settlement varied between Russian and Japanese. The island was formally claimed as Japanese territory in 1855. Near the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Soviet Union occupied the southern Kurils and forcibly removed its Japanese residents. Japan continues to claim the islands and considers the northern edge of

2106-698: The Black Sea coast), Belarus , Russia (mostly central part of European Russia ), south and central parts of the Nordic countries not bathed by the Atlantic Ocean or North Sea : Sweden (historical regions of Svealand and Götaland ), Denmark , Finland (south end, including the three largest cities ), Norway (most populated area), all Baltic States : Estonia , Latvia , Lithuania and also in parts of: Romania (generally above 100 m (328 ft)), Bosnia and Herzegovina , Turkey and in

2184-482: The Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland , (generally above 100 m (328 ft)). It has little warming or precipitation effects from the northern Atlantic. The cool summer subtype is marked by mild summers, long cold winters and less precipitation than the hot summer subtype; however, short periods of extreme heat are not uncommon. Northern Japan has a similar climate. In Asia, this climate type

2262-484: The Dfa climate type is present near the Black Sea in southern Ukraine , the Southern Federal District of Russia , southern Moldova , Serbia , parts of southern Romania , and Bulgaria , but tends to be drier and can be even semi-arid in these places. In East Asia, this climate exhibits a monsoonal tendency with much higher precipitation in summer than in winter, and due to the effects of

2340-609: The Habomai Islands , 50 km to the east. Kunashir Island is visible from the nearby Japanese island of Hokkaido , from which it is separated by the Nemuro Strait . Kunashir Island is formed by four volcanoes which were separate islands but have since joined together by low-lying areas with lakes and hot springs . All four volcanoes are still active: Tyatya (1,819 m (5,968 ft)), Smirnov , Mendeleev (Rausu-yama), and Golovnin (Tomari-yama). The island

2418-538: The Korean Peninsula , parts of Eastern Europe , parts of southern Ontario , much of the American Midwest , and the Northeast US , the climate combines hotter summer maxima and greater humidity (similar to those found in adjacent humid subtropical climates ) and moderately cold winters and more intermittent snow cover (averaging somewhat below freezing, too cold for a more temperate classification), and

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2496-574: The VOC ) and a large and prosperous Staten Island (named after the States General ) bear no relation to anything in the area, a fact established by Vitus Bering 's lieutenant Martin Spanberg in a series of voyages in 1738, 1739, and 1742. The phantom Staten Island ( Staten Eyland ; French : Isle des États ) still continued to appear on European maps for decades afterward, however, and

2574-591: The Canadian Prairie Provinces and below 40°N in the high Appalachians . In Europe, this subtype reaches its most northerly latitude in Bodø at the 67°N . High-altitude locations such as Flagstaff, Arizona , Aspen, Colorado and Los Alamos, New Mexico in the western United States exhibit local Dfb climates. The south-central and southwestern Prairie Provinces also fits the Dfb criteria from

2652-662: The Fregat basalts. On Kunashir, the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene Rybakov Formation was exclusively formed under subaqueous conditions. The volcanic rocks of the middle Pliocene Kamuy Formation, assigned to subaerial conditions in the northern and central parts of Kunashir Island, indicate a subaqueous environment in the southern part. Intensive uplift, beginning in the second half of the Pliocene, led to significant tectonic movements between

2730-646: The Fregat volcanic rocks are predominantly of sub-aerial origin, occasionally deposited at shallow depths below sea level. The Fregat volcanic deposits formed a distinctive volcanic plateau, formed near sea level and affected by subsequent tectonic movements, resulting in the fragmented table-top mountainous topography of Kunashir (Syvorotkin and Rusinova, 1989). The age of the Fregat Formation was determined to be late Pliocene to early Pleistocene based on diatoms (Neodenticula kamtschatica - N. Koizumii) and palynology (Dunichev, 1969), in agreement with K-Ar data from

2808-594: The Holocene deposits on Iturup Island are poorly studied, relying primarily on C14 dates from Kasatka Bay and Olga Bay[14]. Three transgressive phases of sedimentation, comparable to the Atlantic, Subboreal and Sub-Atlantic periods, with a maximum sea level rise of up to 3.5 metres above the present level in the Atlantic, have been identified at the mouth of the Kurilka River. Fieldwork conducted in 2017-2018 on

2886-627: The Iturup strawberry) or bare rocks. The island also contains some high waterfalls , such as the Ilya Muromets . Rheniite , a rhenium sulfide mineral (ReS 2 ), was discovered in active hot fumaroles on Kudriavy volcano and first described in 2004. In the field it was originally mistaken for molybdenite . The development of the Kuril Island arc was significantly influenced by extensive caldera-forming volcanic eruptions during

2964-605: The Kamuy Formation sediments, and K-Ar ages ranging from 61 ± 12 to about 10 Ma (most common ages found between 11e10 Ma) (Rybin, 1994). The Dokuchaev Granitoid Complex, younger than the Prasolov Complex, comprised three small stocks that cut across the Kamuy Formation. Intrusive contacts were observed and Kamuy xenoliths were present (Vergunov and Vlasov, cit. opt.). The Dokuchaev Complex, consisting of tonalite-porphyry, granodiorite-porphyry and diorite-porphyry,

3042-746: The Kuril islands are the Ainu . They have lived there since at least the 14th century. Europeans are first recorded visiting this part of the Kurils in 1643 when the Castricum under Maarten Gerritsz Vries was exploring Hokkaido and the surrounding area for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). As with neighboring Urup , Iturup is sometimes said to have been the particular island intended in his account, but in fact his description of an enormous continental Company Land (named after

3120-410: The Kurils in 1643 when the Castricum under Dutch cartographer Maarten Gerritsz Vries was exploring Hokkaido and the surrounding area for the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Vries's account of the area was incredibly garbled—including a fictitious continental extension dubbed Company Land —but while his imaginary Staten Island is usually connected to Iturup , its placement on most maps of

3198-563: The Late Neo-Pleistocene-Holocene, which introduced large amounts of pumice-pyroclastic material and tephra into the wave processing zone. On Iturup Island, the formation of four large collapse calderas during the Late Neo-Pleistocene-Holocene resulted in the release of about 450 km of predominantly dacite pyroclastics. The formation of the subaerial Vetrovoy isthmus is attributed to the accumulation of such material during powerful explosive caldera-forming eruptions in

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3276-623: The Prasolov Complex, which included gabbro, diorite, quartz diorite, granodiorite, and tonalite or plagiogranite, and (2) the Dokuchaev Complex, which included three small bodies of fine-grained porphyritic granodiorite and tonalite (Vergunov and Vlasov, cit. opt.; Kovtunovich et al). The Prasolov plagiogranite (tonalite) - diorite complex consisted of three distinct plutons: the Prasolov, Mechnikov and Lobanov massifs (Vergunov and Vlasov, 1964; Sergeev, 1976, cit. opt.). The Prasolov Massif,

3354-588: The Rybakov and Kamuy formations (e.g. Zhelubovsky and Pryaluhina; Bevz), although Martynov et al. used a different classification and terminology (see below). The Rybakov Formation, located in the most uplifted and deeply exhumed blocks, especially in the northern part of the island, was mainly an andesitic volcanic complex. This formation correlates with what Martynov et al. termed the Miocene Greentuff Formation. The Kamuy Formation, which forms

3432-470: The Upper Complex, was characterised by basaltic and basaltic andesite flows, small sub-volcanic intrusive bodies and modern andesitic stratovolcanoes. Previous studies (Davydov et al.; Vitukhin et al.) suggested a late Miocene to Pliocene age for the Lower Complex, and accordingly older rocks were either absent or not clearly identified on the island. The Lower Complex has been further subdivided into

3510-609: The Vetrovoy isthmus revealed volcanic-tectonic dislocations with a layer of beach material, suggesting the occurrence of at least two pyroclastic outbursts in the mid-Late Holocene. Georadar surveys complemented the manual drilling results, providing insights into the geological features of the isthmus. The deposits of the Vetrovoy Isthmus include volcanic-tectonic dislocations, pumice pyroclastics, aeolian-ash deposits and soil-tephra formations. The morphometric parameters of

3588-547: The Western United States) grade into semi-arid climates with similar temperatures but low precipitation. A hot summer version of a continental climate features an average temperature of at least 22 °C (71.6 °F) in its warmest month. Since these regimes are restricted to the Northern Hemisphere, the warmest month is usually July or August. High temperatures during the warmest month tend to be in

3666-472: The accumulation of the Kamuy and Fregat formations in the late Pliocene. This resulted in a pronounced unconformity between the two, with the Fregat lava plateau experiencing differential vertical movement. The northern part of Kunashir showed substantial uplift of over 1 km, in contrast to the more modest elevation change of 200–300 m in the southern region (Syvorotkin and Rusinova, cit opt.). Sergeev reported

3744-544: The administrative capital of the Kuril islands. There was a village hospital, an Etorofu Fisheries factory, a radio tower of the post office with a radio receiving antenna. The receiver was battery-powered. In 1945, according to decisions of the Yalta Conference , Iturup was occupied by the Soviet Union after Japan's defeat in World War II . The Japanese inhabitants were expelled to mainland Japan. In 1956

3822-565: The backbone of the island, consisted mainly of flysch-like volcanic-sedimentary deposits rich in felsic pumice of (rhyo)dacitic composition, with a thickness exceeding 1100 m (Martynov et al.). The Upper Complex, represented by the Fregat Formation, overlies the Rybakov and Kamuy Formations (Lower Complex). A distinct structural and erosional unconformity separated these complexes. The Fregat Formation comprised subaerial (basaltic) andesitic lava flows interbedded with tuffs, hyaloclastites and basaltic breccias (Syvorotkin and Rusinova). This suggests that

3900-412: The basement terrace indicate an area elevation rate during the last phase of coastal marine accumulation that could reach 4 mm/year, slightly higher than the 3.5 m/year recorded during the last 6000 thousand years. In conclusion, several studies suggest that explosive volcanism in the middle Late Holocene significantly affected the morphotectonic plan of the Vetrovoy Isthmus area, possibly contributing to

3978-420: The central and northeastern portions of North America , Europe , and Asia . Occasionally, they can also be found at higher elevations above other more temperate climate types. They are rare in the Southern Hemisphere , limited to isolated high altitude locations, due to the larger ocean area at that latitude, smaller land mass, and the consequent greater maritime moderation. In the Northern Hemisphere, some of

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4056-459: The classification symbol defines seasonal rainfall as follows: while the third letter denotes the extent of summer heat: Within North America, moisture within this climate regime is supplied by the Great Lakes , Gulf of Mexico and adjacent western subtropical Atlantic . Precipitation is relatively well distributed year-round in many areas with this climate ( f ), while others may see

4134-425: The continents either do not penetrate low enough in latitude or taper too much to have any place that gets the combination of snowy winters and hot summers. Marine influences are very strong around 40°S and such preclude Dfa , Dwa , and Dsa climates from existing in the southern hemisphere. Also known as hemiboreal climate , areas featuring this subtype of the continental climate have an average temperature in

4212-526: The high 20s to low 30s °C (80s °F), while average January afternoon temperatures are near or well below freezing. Frost-free periods typically last 4 to 7 months in this climate regime. Within North America , this climate includes portions of the central and eastern United States from east of 100°W to south of about the 44°N to the Atlantic . Precipitation increases further eastward in this zone and

4290-439: The humid continental climate covers a much larger area than the hot subtype. In North America, the climate zone covers from about 42°N to 50°N latitude mostly east of 100°W , including parts of Southern Ontario , the southern half of Quebec , The Maritimes , and Newfoundland , as well as the northern United States from eastern North Dakota east to Maine . However, it can be found as far north as 54°N , and further west in

4368-474: The humid continental climates, typically in around Hokkaido , Sakhalin Island , northeastern mainland Europe , Scandinavia , Nova Scotia , and Newfoundland are closer to the sea and heavily maritime-influenced and comparable to oceanic climates , with relatively cool summers, significant year-round precipitation (including high amounts of snow) and winters being just below the freezing mark (too cold for such

4446-540: The initial zircon U/Pb ages of the volcanic basement and thermochronological ages for the rocks of Kunashir Island, thus establishing a definitive temporal framework for their emplacement and subsequent exhumation. The volcanic rocks of the Kuril Islands generally exhibited a two-level structural classification: (1) a lower level consisting mainly of moderately deformed Neogene rocks, and (2) an upper level comprising Pleistocene to recent volcanics. These rocks exhibited

4524-686: The island in 1811, but was apprehended by Japanese authorities and spent two years in prison. On September 1, 1945, or one day before the surrender documents of World War II were signed on September 2, 1945, in accordance with understandings reached at the Yalta Conference , the Soviet Union invaded and occupied the Kuril Islands. This occurred after the Soviet Union renounced the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact signed in April 1941, and declared war on Japan on August 9, 1945 (formally,

4602-684: The island to be its own northernmost point. The modern English name Iturup and earlier Yetorup are romanizations of the Russian name Ostrov Iturúp ( Остров Итуру́п , "Iturup Island"). It was previously known in English as Etrof from the Japanese name Etorofu-tō ( 択捉島 , "Iturup Island"). Both the Russian and Japanese names come from the native Ainu Etuworop-sir ( エツ゚ヲロㇷ゚シㇼ ), meaning "island with many capes ". Iturup consists of volcanic massifs and mountain ridges . A series of

4680-559: The largest with an area of 18 km², located in NE Kunashir, acted as a stock. Intrusive contacts with the rocks of the Rybakov Formation were mainly tectonic, with rare intrusive contacts showing contact aureoles characterised by quartz-biotite hornfels. The Prasolov Complex was inferred to be of relatively late Miocene to Pliocene age based on intrusive contacts, the presence of pebbles from Prasolov Complex granitoids in

4758-471: The neighbouring Lesser Kuril Chain of smaller islands, has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International as the island supports populations of various threatened bird species, including many waterbirds , seabirds and waders . The original inhabitants of the island—as with most of Hokkaido and the Kurils—were the Ainu . Europeans are first recorded visiting this part of

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4836-426: The obstruction of the strait. The rise of the terrace surface during the middle Holocene may be related to these volcanic events. The rate of uplift of the area during the last phase of coastal marine accumulation is thought to have been about 4 mm/year. However, there are currently no data on the age of the marine georadar facies identified as a result of research on the Vetrovoy isthmus. The native inhabitants of all

4914-584: The pact itself remained in effect until April 13, 1946). Although Japan agreed after deliberations to cede its claims to "the Kurile Islands" as part of the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951, the Japanese government has claimed since the mid-1950s that the southern islands were not part of the ceded Kuril Islands . The largest settlement on Kunashir Island is Yuzhno-Kurilsk , administrative center of Yuzhno-Kurilsky District . The primary economic activity

4992-517: The period more closely resembles the location of Kunashir. Vitus Bering 's lieutenant Martin Spanberg mapped the actual locations of the Kurils including Kunashir in a series of voyages in 1738, 1739, and 1742 but Company Land and Staten Island continued to appear in European maps decades afterwards. The Japanese expanded north to Kunashir in the 18th century, with the Matsumae clan establishing

5070-436: The perspective of coastal geomorphology. Late Pleistocene explosive volcanism is considered to have been more intense and prolonged than Early Holocene events, leading to the formation of pumice deposits in the Prostor Gulf of Iturup Island. Radiocarbon dating of the peat bog underlying the pumice-pyroclastic cover in the Vetrovoy Isthmus suggests events around 38,000-39,000 years ago. The stratigraphy, genesis and chronology of

5148-537: The remnants thereof). Though humidity levels are often high in locations with humid continental climates, the "humid" designation means that the climate is not dry enough to be classified as semi-arid or arid . By definition, forests thrive within this climate. Biomes within this climate regime include temperate woodlands, temperate grasslands, temperate deciduous or evergreen forests, coniferous forests, and coniferous swamps. Within wetter areas, maple , spruce , pine , fir , and oak can be found. Fall foliage

5226-403: The shallow strait between neighbouring islands. The present geomorphological appearance of the isthmus is a consequence of subsequent wave and aeolian pyroclastic processing, leading to the formation of marine and lagoon terraces. A study by Afanas'ev et al. focuses on examining the existence of the strait separating the southern and northern parts of Iturup Island in the mid-late Holocene from

5304-400: The site of present-day Kurilsk. Japanese rule over Iturup was formally recognized in the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda . On 26 November 1941, a Japanese carrier fleet left Hitokappu Bay (now called Kasatka Bay ), on the eastern shore of Iturup, and sailed for an attack on the American base of Pearl Harbor . Shana Village was located on Iturup (Etorofu) in the Showa era , before 1945. It was

5382-400: The southern Kurils, ownership of which is disputed between Japan and Russia . It is located between Kunashiri 19 km (12 mi) to its southwest and Urup 37 km (23 mi) to its northeast. The Vries Strait between Iturup and Urup forms the Miyabe Line dividing the predominant plants of the Kurils. The native inhabitants of the islands since at least the 14th century were

5460-463: The steppe ( BSk ) climates. In the eastern and Midwestern United States, Pennsylvania , Ohio , Illinois , Indiana , southern New York , most of Connecticut and Rhode Island , and eastern Massachusetts fall into the hot-summer humid continental climate. In Canada, this climate type exists only over portions of Southern Ontario . In the Eastern Hemisphere, this climate regime is found within interior Eurasia and east-central Asia. Within Europe,

5538-488: The strong Siberian High much colder winter temperatures than similar latitudes around the world, however with lower snowfall, the exception being western Japan with its heavy snowfall. Tōhoku , between Tokyo and Hokkaidō and Western coast of Japan also has a climate with Köppen classification Dfa , but is wetter even than that part of North America with this climate type. A variant which has dry winters and hence relatively lower snowfall with monsoonal type summer rainfall

5616-421: The two countries agreed to restore diplomatic relations, but a peace treaty, as of 2024 , has not been concluded due to the disputed status of Iturup and some other nearby islands. A Soviet Anti-Air Defense (PVO) airfield, Burevestnik ( English : storm-petrel ), is located on the island and was until 1993 home to a number of Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 fighter jets. In 1968, Seaboard World Airlines Flight 253A

5694-435: The warmest month below 22 °C (72 °F). Summer high temperatures in this zone typically average between 21–28 °C (70–82 °F) during the daytime and the average temperatures in the coldest month are generally well or far below the −3 °C (27 °F) (or 0 °C (32.0 °F)) isotherm. Frost-free periods typically last 3–5 months. Heat spells lasting over a week are rare. The warm summer version of

5772-455: The −3 °C (27 °F) average temperature isotherm (line of equal temperature) was near the southern extent of winter snowpack . In the United States, it is more common to use the 0 °C [32.0 °F] isotherm instead. The 10 °C (50 °F) average temperature was found to be roughly the minimum temperature necessary for tree reproduction and growth. Wide temperature ranges are common within this climate zone. Second letter in

5850-592: Was approximately 17,000. Iturup Iturup ( Russian : Итуру́п ; Japanese : 択捉島 ), also historically known by other names , is an island in the Kuril Archipelago separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean . The town of Kurilsk , administrative center of Kurilsky District , is located roughly midway along its western shore. Iturup is the largest and northernmost of

5928-874: Was closely linked to the subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Okhotsk Plate (Martynov et al., 2010a). Among these, Tyatya Volcano stands out as one of the most active and best studied volcanoes in the Kuril Arc (Nakagawa et al.). Both the Lower and Upper Complexes were characterized by numerous sub-volcanic intrusions, with the Lower Complex also containing deeper intrusions. In the Rybakov Formation these intrusions manifested as stocks, dikes and sills of basaltic, andesitic and dacitic composition. The Kamuy Formation contained mainly dacite stocks, dikes and sills. Deeper-seated igneous rocks without volcanic analogs were represented by two distinct intrusive complexes: (1)

6006-523: Was intercepted over the Kurils and forced to land at Burevestnik with 214 American troops bound for Vietnam . An older airfield, Vetrovoe , exists on the eastern part of the island and may have been used primarily by Japanese forces during World War II . A new international airport, Iturup Airport , was opened in 2014, 7 kilometres ( 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 miles) east of Kurilsk. It was the first airport built from scratch in Russia's post-Soviet history. It has

6084-594: Was sending fighter planes to Iturup. Su-35 aircraft landed on a reserve airfield on the island in March 2018 and Su-35s were then deployed to Iturup airport on a trial basis in August 2018. Administratively, the island belongs to the Sakhalin Oblast of the Russian Federation . Japan claims Iturup as part of Nemuro Subprefecture . Humid continental climate A humid continental climate

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