Graham Bell Island
Template: Infobox Island / Maintenance / image missing
The Graham Bell Island (Russian Остров Греэм - Белл - Ostrov Greem Bell) is the easternmost island belonging to Russia archipelago Franz Josef Land in the Arctic Ocean.
Geography
With 1,560 square kilometers, the Graham Bell Island is the third largest of the archipelago. Parts of the island are covered with ice all year round. The highest point of the isle, the Windy ice cap ( cupola Wetreny ) is given as 509 meters, according to other sources 580 meters. The ice cap is the largest in the archipelago. Their thickness reaches approximately 500 meters.
The easternmost point of the island is Cape Kohlsaat (Russian Мыс Кохлсаат - Mys Kohlsaat ). Since the area is close to the pack ice edge, the lake is around the Cape all year full drift. At the same chap Kohlsaat marks the northwestern point of the Kara Sea.
From its western neighbor island Wilczek Land (not to be confused with the Wilczek Island ) separates the Graham Bell Island only a 6 km wide waterway that is known as Morgan Sound (Russian Пролив Моргана - Proliw Morgana ).
History
The official discovery of Graham Bell Island is Evelyn Baldwin attributed to the island during the Walter Wellman Expedition (1898-1899) four times crossed by dogsled and roughly mapped. However, it can be assumed that the island as well as the entire archipelago have been spotted much earlier by sailors. Wellman named the island after the then President of the National Geographic Society, the inventor Alexander Graham Bell.
1926, the entire archipelago Franz Josef Land was taken by the Soviet Union in possession. Later, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union established the secret military airfield Greem Bell including radar station on the largely ice-free Cholmisty Peninsula ( Полуостров Холмистыӣ ). It was the northernmost base of the country. It had a 2.1 km long runway, which was served regularly by large transport aircraft and long-range bombers since the late 1950s. Since the late 1990s, the military base is considered abandoned. In recent years, efforts have been made to eliminate the environmentally hazardous legacies of the military on the islands.