Yarok Island is an island in the Laptev Sea

Laptev Sea

The Laptev Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the northern coast of Siberia, the Taimyr Peninsula, Severnaya Zemlya and the New Siberian Islands. Its northern boundary passes from the Arctic Cape to a point with co-ordinates of 79°N and 139°E, and ends at the Anisiy...

, a marginal sea

Marginal sea

The term marginal sea has differing meanings. In one sense the term is equivalent to territorial waters. In another sense the term indicates a partially enclosed sea adjacent to or widely open to the open ocean, but bounded by submarine ridges...

 of the Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

. The island is located off the mouths of the Yana river

Yana River

The Yana River , is a river in Sakha in Russia, located between the Lena to the west and the Indigirka to the east.It is 872 km in length. The area of its basin is 238,000 km², whilst its annual discharge totals approximately . Most of this discharge occurs in May and June as the ice on the...

, only a few kilometres towards the east.

Yarok Island is large and flat. It has many small lakes, swamps and sandbars. Its length is 38 km and its maximum breadth 26 km.

The Yana delta, the coastal area off which Yarok Island lies, is an extensive wetland zone. It is subject to severe Arctic weather with frequent gales and blizzards. Further north, the sea in the Yana Bay

Yana Bay

The Yana Bay is the most important gulf of the Laptev Sea. It is located between Cape Buor-Khaya on its western side and the Ebelyakh Bay at its eastern end....

 is frozen with thick ice for about eight months every year, so that Yarok is merged with the mainland.

Administratively Yarok Island belongs to the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) of the Russian Federation.

History

In 1712 Yakov Permyakov

Yakov Permyakov

Yakov Permyakov was a Russian seafarer, explorer, merchant, and Cossack.In 1710, while sailing from the Lena River to the Kolyma River, Permyakov observed the silhouette of two unknown island groups in the sea...

 and his companion Merkury Vagin

Merkury Vagin

Merkury Vagin was a Russian Arctic explorer.In 1712, together with Yakov Permyakov, Merkury Vagin explored the region of the eastern Laptev Sea coast, including Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island, the southermost of the New Siberian Archipelago...

, the first recorded Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n explorers of the area, crossed the Yana Bay

Yana Bay

The Yana Bay is the most important gulf of the Laptev Sea. It is located between Cape Buor-Khaya on its western side and the Ebelyakh Bay at its eastern end....

 from the mouth of the Yana River to Bolshoy Lyakhovsky over the ice and explored the then unknown island. Unfortunately Permyakov and Vagin were killed on the way back from their exploration by mutineering expedition members.

In 1892–1894 Baron Eduard Von Toll, accompanied by expedition leader Alexander von Bunge, carried out geological surveys in the Yana delta area on behalf of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences located in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

.