The Lyakhovsky Islands are named in honour of
Ivan Lyakhov, who explored them in 1773.
Geology
Maly Lyakhovsky Island consists of Upper
Jurassic to lower
Cretaceousturbidites, also known as flysch, covered by a thin veneer of
Pliocene to
Pleistocenesediments. These
Mesozoic rocks consist of
sandstones,
argillites, and
shales deformed into east-northeast striking folds about 7 to 20 km (4.3 to 12.4 mi) wide. The Mesozoic rocks are covered by a relatively thin layer of Pliocene to Pleistocene sandy and clayey sediments of
colluvial and
alluvial origin. Near the coast, the alluvial sediments grade into nearshore
marine sediments containing
fossil marine
mollusks and lignitized wood. Thick
permafrost characterized by massive ice wedges has developed in these sediments.[2][3][4]
On 29 May 2013, an expedition of North-Eastern Federal University found the remains of a 10,000-year-old carcass of a female mammoth on Maliy Lyakhovsky Island. It was reported that liquid blood was found in ice cavities below the belly even though the temperature at the time of excavation was −7 to −10 °C (19 to 14 °F). It was speculated that this find might reveal information about the cryoprotective properties of mammoth blood. The mammoth remains were taken to
Yakutsk in
Sakha Republic, Russia, for bacterial examination and tissues analysis, especially for a joint project of NEFU and Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in cloning a mammoth.[5]
Vegetation
Rush/grass, forb, cryptogam tundra covers Maly Lyakhovsky Island. It is tundra consisting mostly of very low-growing grasses, rushes, forbs, mosses, lichens, and liverworts. These plants either mostly or completely cover the surface of the ground. The soils are typically moist, fine-grained, and often hummocky.[6]
^Fujita, K., and D.B. Cook, 1990, The Arctic continental margin of eastern Siberia, in A. Grantz, L. Johnson, and J. F. Sweeney, eds., pp. 289–304, The Arctic Ocean Region. Geology of North America, vol L, Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado.
^Kos’ko, M.K., B.G. Lopatin, and V.G. Ganelin, 1990, Major geological features of the islands of the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas and the Northern Coast of Chukotka. Marine Geology. vol. 93, pp. 349–367.
Kuznetsova, T.V., L.D. Sulerzhitsky, Ch. Siegert, 2001,
New data on the "Mammoth" fauna of the Laptev Shelf Land (East Siberian Arctic), 144 KB PDF file, The World of Elephants – International Congress, Rome 2001. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Centro di Studio per il Quaternario e l'Evoluzione Ambientale, Università di Roma, Roma, Italy.