Misplaced Pages

#885114

9-618: Vaygach Island is separated from the Yugorsky Peninsula in the mainland by the Yugorsky Strait and from Novaya Zemlya by the Kara Strait . The island is a part of Nenets Autonomous Okrug of Arkhangelsk Oblast , Russia . Vaygach Island is mainly formed of argillaceous slates , sandstone , and limestone . There are many rivers about 20–40 kilometres (12–25 mi) in length, swamps , and small lakes on

18-587: A twin impact structure from a large-scale meteorite hit in the late Cretaceous . However, it seems that the Ust-Kara site does not exist as a separate site. Apparently, the suevite outcrops of the Ust-Kara impact structure are only a part of the Kara impact structure. (Hodge 1994 and NASA 1988) This Nenets Autonomous Okrug location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Vaygach Island Too Many Requests If you report this error to

27-682: Is Varnek . Grasses , mosses and Arctic flowering plants are abundant, but there are no trees excepting occasional dwarf willows . Foxes and lemmings are spotted occasionally, and at least five polar bears are known to inhabit the island. While there are few land animals, birds are numerous; a variety of waterbirds and waders frequent the marshes and lakes . The island regularly supports significant populations of bean , barnacle and greater white-fronted geese , tundra swans , long-tailed ducks , goosanders , snowy owls and peregrine falcons . It has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International . In July 2007,

36-718: The Kara Sea to the north and east. Compared to the Barents Sea , which receives relatively warm currents from the Atlantic Ocean , the Kara Sea is much colder, remaining frozen for over nine months a year. Thus often, in the spring and in the fall, the eastern coast of the Yugorsky Peninsula is frozen, while its western coast is clear of ice. The Yugorsky Strait and, beyond it, Vaygach Island lie at

45-579: The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Russian government approved a nature reserve on Vaygach island. The island's surrounding seas are home to many marine mammals such as walruses , seals and endangered whales . The name of the island translates from the Nenets as "alluvial shore", or by another account Vaygach means ‘terrible death’ or ‘territory of death’ in the local language. Until

54-412: The 19th century, the island was an important shrine of the Nenets people . On the island of Vaygach since ancient times, two idols were worshiped. One, named Vesako, on the south end of the island. The other on the north is Hadako. There were also polycephalic wooden idols painted with blood of holy animals, primarily reindeer . Some of their sacrificial piles, consisting of drift-wood, deer's horns and

63-399: The island. For the most part it consists of tundra . Slight rocky ridges run generally along its length, and the coast has low cliffs in places. The island consists mostly of limestone, and its elevation above the sea is geologically recent. Raised beaches are frequent. The rocks are heavily scored by ice, but this was probably marine ice, not that of glaciers. The only settlement on the island

72-509: The northwestern end of this peninsula. The Pay-Khoy Ridge occupies the peninsula and extends from northwest to southeast. In the southeastern end of the Yugorsky Peninsula lies the Kara meteorite crater , while the Ust-Kara site lies offshore, 15 km east of the small Kara or Karskaya Guba inlet. It was formerly believed that these two sites were two separate craters and that they formed

81-729: The skulls of bears and deer, have been observed by travellers. In spite of their conversion to Christianity, the Nenets still regard these piles with superstition. Yugorsky Peninsula The Yugorsky Peninsula ( Russian : Югорский полуостров ) is a large peninsula in Nenets Autonomous Okrug , Russia . It is limited by the Khaypudyr Bay in the Pechora Sea to the west and by the Baydaratsk Bay in

#885114