page_title: Laptev Sea
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Laptev Sea / Geography
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Анабарский залив
context_page_description: 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 Cape. The Kara Sea lies to the west, the East Siberian Sea to the east.
  The sea is named after the Russian explorers Dmitry Laptev and Khariton Laptev; formerly, it had been known under various names, the last being Nordenskiöld Sea, after explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld. The sea has a severe climate with temperatures below 0 °C over more than nine months per year, low water salinity, scarcity of flora, fauna and human population, and low depths. It is frozen most of the time, though generally clear in August and September.
  The sea shores were inhabited for thousands of years by indigenous tribes of Yukaghirs and then Evens and Evenks, which were engaged in fishing, hunting and reindeer husbandry. They were then settled by Yakuts and later by Russians. Russian explorations of the area started in the 17th century.
context_section_description: The Lena River, with its large delta, is the biggest river flowing into the Laptev Sea, and is the second largest river in the Russian Arctic after Yenisei. Other important rivers include the Khatanga, the Anabar, the Olenyok or Olenek, the Omoloy and the Yana.
  The sea shores are winding and form gulfs and bays of various sizes. The coastal landscape is also diverse, with small mountains near the sea in places. The main gulfs of the Laptev Sea coast are the Khatanga Gulf, the Olenyok Gulf, the Buor-Khaya Gulf and the Yana Bay.
  There are several dozens of islands with the total area of 3,784 km² (1,461 sq mi), mostly in the western part of the sea and in the river deltas. Storms and currents due to the ice thawing significantly erode the islands, so the Semenovsky and Vasilievsky islands (74°12"N, 133°E) which were discovered in 1815 have already disappeared. The most significant groups of islands are Severnaya Zemlya, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Vilkitsky and Faddey, and the largest individual islands are Bolshoy Begichev (1764 km²), Belkovsky (500 km²), Maly Taymyr (250 km²), Stolbovoy (170 km²), Starokadomsky (110 km²), and Peschanyy (17 km²). (see Islands of the Laptev Sea)
  More than half of the sea (53%) rests on a continental shelf with the average depths below 50 meters (160 ft), and the areas south from 76°N are shallower than 25 m. In the northern part, the sea bottom sharply drops to the ocean floor with the depth of the order of 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) (22% of the sea area). There it is covered with silt, which is mixed with ice in the shallow areas.
  The Laptev Sea is bound to the south by the East Siberian Lowland, an alluvial plain mainly composed of sediments of marine origin dating back to the time when the whole area was occupied by the Verkhoyansk Sea, an ancient sea at the edge of the Siberian Craton in the Permian period. As centuries went by, gradually, most of the area limiting the sea to the south became filled with the alluvial deposits of modern rivers.
caption: The shore of the Anabar Bay.
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