Map of Bering Strait - Bering Strait Map, World Strait Locations - World Atlas Map of Bering Strait - Bering Strait Map, World Strait Locations Bering Strait The Bering Strait, located just to the south of the Arctic Circle at the northern edges of the Bering Sea, is a somewhat narrow sea passage between the easternmost point of the Asian continent and the westernmost point of the North American continent. This strait separates the United States and Russia by 58 miles (85 km), with a water depth that measures 100–165 feet, (30–50 meters). It is named for Danish-born Russian mariner Vitus Bering, who first spotted the Alaskan mainland while exploring the area with an expedition of Russian sailors in the mid-18th century. The official boundary between the United States and Russia lies at the tip of the red arrow; at that exact point in the middle of the strait, are two islands - Big and Little Diomede. Archaeologists have concluded that during the last Ice Age, a natural land bridge still spanned the short distance between the two continents, which over eons of times has all but eroded due to the strong currents and relentless winds.

In the last few decades some factions have discussed the construction of a bridge over the strait, however, financial and weather concerns have continually stalled the project. Recently, talk of a tunnel under the strait has been on the front burner, however, the high cost of same will certainly be a factor, but imagine driving from Alaska to Russia. Wow, what a concept! A satellite image of the Bering Strait What strait separates North America from Asia? | Reference.com What strait separates North America from Asia? A: Quick Answer The Bering Strait separates North America from Asia. It is a sea passage located between Alaska and Russia. The length of the Strait is 58 miles, and it has areas where the water depth can reach 165 feet. Full Answer The Bering Strait connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The International Date Line also runs along the Bering Strait, putting Alaska and Russia on different calendar days. The last ice age destroyed the land that connected Russia and Alaska. The natural bridge that once existed between the land masses is known as Beringia. Scientists have speculated that people from Asia migrated to Alaska over the bridge.

Russia - Alaska: The bridge across the Bering Strait - Russian cities today Russia - Alaska: The bridge across the Bering Strait Details SocButtons v1.6 Bering Strait is - strait between the easternmost point of Asia (Cape Dezhnev) and the most western point of North America (Cape Prince of Wales). The smallest width is 86 km, the smallest fairway depth is 36 m. The strait connects the Arctic Ocean (Chukchi Sea) from the Pacific Ocean (Bering Sea). The strait was named after the Russian explorer Vitus Bering (born in Denmark), sailed on the ship through this strait in 1728. Tunnel or bridge (Russia - Alaska) across the Bering Strait is - the project to connect Eurasia and North America (Alaska and Chukotka on / under the Bering Strait. The direct connection between North America and Eurasia should contribute to unprecedented economic growth on both continents. History of the project 1890 Governor of the State of Colorado (USA), William Gilpin, first expressed the idea to connect North America and Eurasia with railway ferry link.

The idea was supported by the head of the Union Pacific Railroad of U.S. and includes “Harriman’s plan”. 1891-1916 Russia built the Trans-Siberian Railway (Transsib) that is the largest railway track in the world. Its length is 9,000 kilometers. The beginning of XX century The project was approved by Nicholas II, Prime Minister Witte, military and financial ministries. The Government decided to implement the project twice, but it remained unrealized due to force majeure. (First World War interfered, then the October Revolution.) Survey and feasibility study of the project was conducted under the direction of Loïc Delobel (France) and Waddell & Reed (USA). The project was considered to be technically feasible and economically justified. Known researcher of Alaska Loïc Delobel referred to technical Imperial Russian society with the idea to reconnoitre the route from Yakutsk to the Bering Strait and further to Alaska.

April 1918 At a meeting of the Central Executive Committee Vladimir Lenin put his signature on the decision on the construction of railroads in the eastern and northern parts of the Russian Federation, including in the direction of the Bering Strait, to accelerate the development of natural resources. 30 – 50s of XX century The project of construction of the North-Siberian railway from Vorkuta to Anadyr is implemented. 1700 kilometers of railways were built. 60s of XX century American engineers have suggested merging the power systems of Russia and the United States. The implementation of a multi - transport corridor ICL - World Link, including power lines, creates prerequisites for the development of the "energy bridge" Russia - Alaska. Expert estimates predict savings of $ 20 billion annually.

90s of XX century The project was discussed at major international conferences in Washington, Moscow, Anchorage, Novosibirsk, Fairbanks, and at a conference at the UN in Barcelona, at Tunneling Conference in Norway, a conference in Finland on the Environmental Issues in the Arctic, a conference on the Arctic Frontiers in Magadan, management of major projects in Norway, at the meeting of management and engineering staff of the railway NAFTA in Montreal. 1991 In Washington (U.S.) International non-profit corporation «Interhemispheric Bering Strait Tunnel and Railroad Group» (IBSTRG) was incorporated, the Russian name is - "Transcontinental". 1996 The US government has allocated a budget of $ 10 million for research project ICL - World Link. In Anchorage (United States, Alaska) held a meeting of the working group on cooperation "Russian Far East - US West Coast" as the intergovernmental commission Gore - Chernomyrdin. The outcome of the group of Russia and the United States recommended supporting the research program of the project as "having a lot of potential...” The project is included in the priority programs of the Committee on Cooperation in the Asia Pacific Region (APR).

Alaska passed a special resolution on the reservation for the future road route. Interview with Russian travelers: What body of water separates Alaska from Russia . September 2006 Federal Agency for Railway Transport of the Russian Federation decided to build the railway to Yakutsk - Magadan to the Bering Strait. This highway is a part of the Transcontinental railroad (TCM). March 2007 As a part of the federal target program "Development of the Far East and Baikal region" Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov has approved the construction of the road of Berkakit - Tommot - Yakutsk to Magadan, which is an important element of the project ICL - World Link in Russia. April 2007 Russian President Vladimir Putin reviewed and approved the strategy of development of railway transport in Russia until 2030, the construction of the transcontinental railroad Pravaya Lena - Zyrianka - Whalen length of 3.5 thousand kilometers with access to the Bering Strait. This highway is - a key element of the project ICL - World Link in Russia.

In Moscow took place the International Conference "Transcontinental Railroad Eurasia - America across the Bering Strait." What do you think how far is Alaska from Russia? May 2007 Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin said that the budget for the construction of a tunnel under the Bering Strait will not be spent. According to him, "the tunnel could be financed by private companies, if they deem it profitable." Technical criticism of the project An example of modern technical possibilities - there is an Oresund - bridge – the Tunnel and bridge between Denmark and Sweden. Critics of the project say that the project exceeds the current technical capabilities. At the same time, its supporters say that the distance between the shores of the strait at the narrowest point is quite large (86 km), but the distance to the Big Diomede Island (Ratmanov Island) substantially less than the length of the longest in the world (53.9 km) tunnel connecting the Japanese islands Honshu and Hokkaido.

Publicly announced a project of the construction of a 180-kilometer underwater tunnel connecting Japan and South Korea, gives the reason to believe that the construction of the 90-100 km tunnel under the Bering Strait is the most feasible, given the fact that according to the degree of seismic hazard and the necessary depth of the tunnel, the project between Eurasia and America looks much simpler. Can you drive from Alaska to Russia? Rean more... It is argued that the costs for the completion of the Eurasian route of railroad from Chukotka to the Trans-Siberian Railway is disproportionately large, and never repaid (completion of the missing sections of the railroad in the United States and Canada also looks quite expensive). These claims are largely valid, but critics generally offer for consideration is not quite correct routes going through the mountains of Yakutia or along the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk through Magadan. Neighbors Russia and Alaska In her Sept. 11 interview with ABC's Charlie Gibson, Sarah Palin had this to say about Russia: "They're our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." Is that true? Yes.

Russia and Alaska are divided by the Bering Strait, which is about 55 miles at its narrowest point. In the middle of the Bering Strait are two small, sparsely populated islands : Big Diomede, which sits in Russian territory, and Little Diomede, which is part of the United States. At their closest, these two islands are a little less than two and a half miles apart, which means that, on a clear day, you can definitely see one from the other. The Diomede Islands are often blanketed by persistent fog, which makes visibility difficult. On a clear day, though, a person standing at sea level can see a little less than three miles across the ocean. You can see farther if you go higher —at the highest altitude on Little Diomede (919 feet), you can see for about 37 miles. (Between mid-December and mid-June, when the water between the two islands freezes , an intrepid explorer can just walk from one to the other.) Advertisement The tactical importance of this proximity is debatable, however:Big Diomede has no permanent population though it does house an important weather station.

Alaskans can, however, see into the future from Little Diomede since Big Diomede (or Ratmanov Island, as it's known to the Russians) is on the other side of the International Date Line . You can also see Russia from other points in Alaska. According to a New York Times article written in the waning years of the Cold War (when the Alaska-Siberia border was known as the "Ice Curtain"), if you stand on high ground on the tip of St. Lawrence Island—a larger Alaskan island in the Bering Sea, southwest of the Diomedes—you can see the Russian mainland, about 37 miles away. The same article claims that you can see Russia from the Tin City Air Force facility at Cape Prince of Wales, which is the westernmost point of the mainland Americas.The station chief at Tin City confirms that, for roughly half the year, you can see Siberian mountain ranges from the highest part of the facility. It's not as if Alaskans can see into the heart of the Kremlin, though.

The region you'd be seeing from these vantage points is the Chukotka autonomous district , a massive, desolate expanse of about 285,000 square miles with a population of about 55,000. (That's an area roughly the size of Texaswith a population the size of Pine Bluff, Ark .) Chukotka has fewer than 400 miles of road and no railroad infrastructure; the population is mostly employed in mining and subsistence hunting. The more strategic areas of the Russian coastline, militarily speaking—the Kamchatka Peninsula, home to a nuclear submarine base, or Vladivostok, headquarters of the Russian Pacific Fleet—are not visible from Gov. Palin's home state. Palin does have Obama beat, though: The closest foreign territory to Hawaii is the Micronesian Republic of Kiribati , but at more than 1,000 miles away, it's not remotely visible with the naked eye. Russian Heritage, Alaska Kids' Corner, State of Alaska De Stoeckel gets authority to start negotiating the sale of Alaska to the United States. 1867 U.S.

Secretary of State William Seward negotiates the purchase of Alaska for $7.2 million. Treaty signed March 30. Transfer occurs at the Russian Alaska capital of Sitka on Oct. 18. Alaska - Russian Facts Alaska and Russia share a border. The U.S.-Russian maritime boundary zigzags down the Bering Strait between the Asian and American land masses. Alaska and Russia are less than 3 miles apart at their closest point in the Bering Strait where two islands, Russia's Big Diomede Island and Alaska's Little Diomede Island, are located. In winter it is possible to walk across the frozen Bering Strait border between these two islands. At its closest, the American mainland and the Russian mainland are 55 miles apart where Alaska's Seward Peninsula and Russia's Chukotka Peninsula reach out to each other. Cities and towns in Alaska and the RFE are closer to each other than they are to their own national capitals. Russia governed Alaska as a colony for almost as long as the United States has now governed Alaska as a territory and state.

Alaska has two official state holidays: Seward's Day, the last Monday in March, commemorates the 1867 signing of the treaty in which U.S. Secretary of State William Seward agreed to purchase Alaska from the czar; and Alaska Day, Oct. 18, which marks the formal transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States in the Russian capital of Sitka. Alaska has many historic Russian buildings. There are active Russian Orthodox Churches in some 80 Alaska communities, many of which still use the old-style Russian Orthodox calendar and celebrate Christmas on what is marked as Jan. 7 in Western calendars. Many of Alaska's native peoples who lived in the regions colonized by Russia have Russian surnames, stemming from the days when they were colonial subjects of the czar and many intermarried. Russian names mark Alaska's geographical landscape. Russian Orthodox "Old Believers" who emigrated from the Soviet Union have their own old-style Russian villages in Alaska. Except during the Cold War, Alaska and Russian natives on either side of the Bering Strait carried on with routine visits, seasonal festivals and subsistence trade.

During the Cold War, Alaskans referred to the closed border between Russia and Alaska as the "Ice Curtain." Their goal: to melt the Ice Curtain. The University of Alaska has more Russian students at its campuses than any other university in the United States. Much of the flora and fauna and geology in Alaska are similar to the Russian Far East and eastern Siberia. Alaska serves as the U.S. gateway for all flights between the Russian Far East and the United States. Alaska Facts State Nick Name: "The Last Frontier" - the name Alaska is derived from the Aleut word "Aleyska," meaning "great land." State Motto: "North to the Future" State Capital: Juneau, located in the Southeast region of Alaska, has a population of 33,277 (2015 Estimate of Population, Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development) Alaska Map: Alaska Flag: NOTE: The State of Alaska is not responsible for the content/information on any site outside of a State of Alaska department. Popular Links What is the name of the body of water between Alaska and Asia? | Reference.com What is the name of the body of water between Alaska and Asia?

A: Quick Answer The Bering Strait is the body of water that separates Alaska from the Asian continent. The distance across the strait from the United States to Russia is 58 miles. Full Answer The boundary between the United States and Russia is located in the middle of the Bering Strait, at the site of the Big and Little Diomedes islands. Archaeologists believe that during the last Ice Age, the two continents were connected by a land bridge that eroded over time due to strong seas and winds. While there has been discussion of connecting the two continents again via bridges or tunnels, the expense and weather conditions make such a connection difficult. Great Land of Alaska - Alaskan FAQ Great Land of Alaska Frequently Asked Questions Do you have a question about Alaska? Ask me and I'll answer by e-mail or add it to this page if it's something I get asked a lot. How many miles is it from Alaska to Russia? Do you live in an igloo? No, I live in an perfectly normal 7-plex. All cities and major towns in Alaska have regular houses, apartments, buildings, etc. Even in the bush, people live in houses. Don't you get cold?

If I went outside in the middle of January wearing nothing but a t-shirt and shorts, then I'd get cold. However, like anybody else who lives somewhere that gets below freezing during the winter, I dress to keep warm. How do you keep warm? That depends on where I am and what I'm doing. In just normal travelling from home to work or to the store, I'm never outside long enough to get too cold. If I'm ice fishing, I can plan on being outside in -20° C weather for several hours, so I dress for it - long johns, jeans, sweater, button-up shirt, snowpants, down coat, face mask, scarf, thick hat, thick gloves, and bunny boots. What are bunny boots? Bunny Boots [picture] are extreme cold-weather boots. They are made of an inner and an outer layer of rubber so they are waterproof. Between the two layers of rubber is insulating felt, as well as as insulating layer of air. A valve in the side of the boot allows the wearer to adjust the air inside according to the outside air pressure.

I've worn my bunny boots while ice fishing and while servicing a TV transmitter on the side of a mountain in the middle of winter, and my feet have never been cold. Is it really dark most of the year? This surprises a lot of people, but Alaska doesn't have more darkness than light. It may be dark most of the time during the winters, but during the summer it is light most of the time so it evens out. How long the darkness/light lasts depend on how far north you are. In Barrow, the sun may not rise during the middle of winter, and may not set during the summer. In the Southcentral, the sun does set during the summer but it may not get any darker than twilight. The sun does rise in winter but doesn't get very high as you can see in this picture taken near noon on the Winter Solstice. Do you have electricity and computers up there? How else would I have created this web page? Is all of Alaska covered by ice? Only about 5% of Alaska is covered by permanent ice. The rest of it is swamp, forest, mountain, plains, tundra, muskeg, marsh, etc. Do you get a lot of snow?

That depends on where in Alaska you are. Some parts of Alaska are desert and so receive little precipitation in any form. Other areas can receive several meters of snow during the winter. In the part of Alaska I live in, we average a few feet per year. Do you travel by dog sled? I drive a Dodge pickup. In the city, cars are the primary means of transportation. In the bush areas, cars and trucks may be used, but 3-wheelers, 4-wheelers, and snowmachines are the main forms of transportation. Most dog teams that exist today are mainly used for sport, although a few bush villages still use dog teams for transportation. Do you use Russian/Canadian currency? We use American money. I have noticed, however, that many Alaskan stores and vending machines will accept Canadian coins. All the lower-48 stores I've been to refuse to accept any Canadian coins, period. Do you have penguins up there? Aside from the 'beanie baby' type of toy penguins, we do not have any, not even at the zoo. Most people associate penguins with snow, ice, and cold weather.

Although we have the climate that people would expect penguins to live in, they are only found in the southern hemisphere. Have you seen any bears? I've not seen as many as a lot of people have, but I have seen a few. In my entire life in Alaska, I've only seen 6 wild Black Bears (2 of them were cubs) and about a dozen wild Grizzly Bears. What kinds of wildlife have you seen? I've seen moose, caribou, lynx, fox, coyotes, beluga whales, sea otters, harbour seals, sea lions, mink, porcupines, beavers, muskrats, rabbits, owls, eagles, hawks, and too many small critters to mention. Are Moose dangerous? Moose, if provoked, can be quite a deadly animal. A single kick from one can be fatal. There are a lot of moose in town and most of them will leave people alone if given enough room. There have been a few fatal attacks though, but these have happened because the victim came too close (not always intentionally--moose can be hard to see in the dark of night).

I've heard (from professional hunting guides so I tend to believe this) that in the wild one often has more to fear from moose than bears in that a moose may attack without any provocation. How much does the average king crab weigh? An average Alaskan King Crab typically weighs around 10 pounds (4.5 kg) and its leg span is about 2 feet (0.6 meters). They can grow up to 24 pounds (10.9 kg) with a leg span of 5 feet (1.5 meters). The size typically caught by crab fishermen and sold in stores and restaurants is around 10 pounds. Can you speak Eskimo? First, I'd like to say there there isn't any single language that can be called 'Eskimo'. There are different groups of Eskimos in Alaska and they each have a different language such as Inupiaq, Yup'ik, and Siberian Yup'ik. The Native people of the area I grew up in were Yup'ik Eskimo so Yup'ik was the language spoken in that area. I know many Yup'ik words and phrases, but I don't know enough to carry on a conversation.

It wasn't really necessary for me to learn Yup'ik since most people there spoke English as well. Have you ever been in an earthquake? Yes, lots of them. Alaska has over 1,000 earthquakes each year that measure 3.5 or higher on the Richter scale. Only a small handfull of these earthquakes are near enough to where I live for me to feel them. What's the largest earthquake you've ever been in? That would be the November 3rd earthquake of 2002, a 7.9 quake that hit the Alaska Range. I live quite far away from the epicenter so it didn't feel that severe to me, although the ground did shake for a long time. What is there to do if I visit Alaska? That depends on what you like doing. If you're into outdoor sports there's hiking, fishing, camping, kayaking, canoeing, and biking. If you're into history and culture, there's plenty of places to visit to learn about both, such as Anchorage, Nome, Juneau, Skagway, and many others.

If you're visiting for the scenery and wildlife, there's the cruise through the Inside Passage, Kenai Fjords tours, many glacier cruises, Denali Park tours, the Alaska Railroad, dozens of flightseeing companies, and much more. What causes the northern lights? The origin of the Aurora borealis is the sun. Every now and then a solar flare on the sun's surface will send a bunch of charged particles hurtling through space. If the Earth is in the path of this cloud, some of the particles will become trapped in the Earth's magnetic field and will follow the lines of magnetic force to the magnetic north and south poles where they enter the atmosphere. As the particles encounter the various gasses of the atmosphere, they begin to glow in colors such as green (the most common color), red, blue, and violet. Is it true that moose were attacking airplanes in Anchorage several years ago? If that's what you heard, then somebody along the way has exaggerated the story a bit. Bull moose lose their antlers in the fall and often try to speed the process up by rubbing them again large objects such as trees or boulders.

If a moose happens to be wandering through an airport when it decides to start scraping, it'll use any large object it can find, such as a small private single-engine airplane. Several small private airplanes near Anchorage's international airport were damaged this way, but no airplanes have actually been 'attacked'. Do you eat whale blubber? Maqtaq (whale blubber) isn't a part of my regular diet, but I do like it and will eat it if I get a chance. There's really nothting I can compare the flavor to, it has its own taste. It can be eaten raw (a little chewy) or it can be boiled (easier to chew). It goes well with seal oil and a little salt. Can you see Russia from Alaska? Little Diomede Island (Alaska) and Big Diomede Island (Russia) are only about 2.5 miles (4 km) apart so Russia can definitely be seen from Alaska as long as it's light out and the weather hasn't reduced visibility below a couple miles.

As for mainland Russia being visible from mainland Alaska, I can't answer this question with any certainty since I've never been to Alaska's Seward Peninsula or Russia's Chukotsk Peninsula. However, with my knowledge of geography I can probably make an educated guess, and my guess is that the mainlands are too far apart (52 miles/83 km) to see each other. If the mountains on either peninsula were higher then it's more likely that you'd be able to see mainland Russia from mainland Alaska. After all, Denali is visible from Kenai and it's 180 miles/290 km away. However, Denali is 20,320 feet (6,194 meters) tall and the mountains on the Seward Peninsula and Chukotsk Peninsula are much, much smaller. I'd guess the best chance to see mainland Russia from mainland Alaska is to climb to the top of the York Mountains (just east of Wales on the western tip of the Seward Peninsula) on a very clear day and hope for a Fata Morgana . Without the aid of some kind of mirage, I'd say that it's impossible to see mainland Russia from mainland Alaska.

What body of water separates Alaska and Russia? Alaska and Russia are such large areas that you could say that many bodies of water separate them. Between the Aleutian Islands and Russia lies the Bering Sea. Between Alaska's Seward Pensinsula and Russia's Chukotsk Peninsula is the Bering Strait. And the Chukchi Sea separates the northwestern part of Alaska and the northeastern part of Russia. What bodies of water border Alaska? Alaska has many bodies of water bordering it. To the north is the Arctic Ocean and Beaufort Sea. To the northwest is the Chukchi Sea. The Bering Strait and Bering Sea lie along the west and southwest of Alaska, as well as the north of the Aleutian Islands. The Pacific Ocean borders the southern coastline of Alaska. How many mountain ranges are in Alaska? This depends on what definition of "mountain range" you follow. Typically, many people and publications consider there to be 11 mountain ranges in Alaska: Alaska Range, Aleutian Range, Brooks Range, Chugach Mountains, Coast Mountains, Kenai Mountains, Kuskokwim Mountains, Nulato Hills, St.

Elias Mountains, Talkeetna Mountains, and Wrangell Mountains. If you want to get technical, many of these groups are actually considered to be the same range, such as the Chugach Mountains and the Kenai Mountains or the Alaska Range and the Talkeetna Mountains. Then there are the mountains that aren't counted as mountain ranges, such as the mountains on the Seward Peninsula or the Yukon/Tanana Uplands. Of course, there are also dozens of smaller ranges within each of the ranges I've named. For example, Ahklun Mountains and Kilbuck Mountains, both subranges of the Kuskokwim Mountains. See my Mountain Ranges page for more information on Alaskan mountain ranges. What are the two major mountain ranges in Alaska? The Alaska Range and Brooks Range are considered to be Alaska's two largest mountain ranges. See my Mountain Ranges page for more information on Alaskan mountain ranges. Why does snow stay on mountain tops? Three factors, acting alone or in combination, allow snow to remain on mountain tops well into summer and even all year long: temperature, snow quantity, and sunlight (or lack thereof).

Many higher mountains are so high that the temperature at their tops rarely climbs far above freezing, even in the middle of summer. Massive amounts of snow can create snow drifts so deep that it may take until July or even August for it to melt. This, combined with the lower temperatures at high altitudes, enables snow to remain on mountain tops long after it's melted from the lower areas. Finally, since the sun in Alaska remains relatively near the horizon in the summer, the northern sides of many mountain tops receive little direct sunlight, slowing the melting of the snow. Why don't lakes and rivers freeze solid? If they're small enough, they will. However, any lake or river of sufficient size will not freeze solid. The reason most lakes and rivers don't freeze solid is because water, ice, and snow are good insulators and poor conductors of heat. The portions of a lake or river that are exposed to the cold winter air will freeze into ice and this ice insulates the water below from further rapid freezing. Also contributing to the prevention of bodies of water freezing solid is an interesting characteristic of water.

Like most other forms of matter, water become denser as it cools, but beginning at about 39°F (4°C) something odd happens - water begins to lose density as it gets colder, becoming least dense when it freezes into ice. This is why ice floats. As water becomes colder it rises to the top, eventually freezing to the layers of ice that are already there. Insulation of the water beneath is increased as the ice thickens so cooling of the water beneath slows. Many lakes will eventually freeze solid if given enough time. Fortunately, spring thaw arrives long before that happens. As for rivers, a river with a swift enough current will not freeze solid due to the constant motion of the water. Why do lakes and rivers freeze but oceans don't? Actually, oceans do freeze, although the high salt levels lowers the freezing point to around 28.4°F (-2°C). The polar ice cap that many of us have been hearing about so much lately is, in fact, frozen ocean. The ocean around Alaska freezes in the winter, with sea ice occasionally extending as far south as 60° to 62° N lattitude.

The winter is not cold enough for long enough for more of the ocean to freeze, and with the arrival of spring and summer the warmer temperatures causes this ice shelf to melt. However, the parts of the ocean north of Alaska, Canada, and Russia remains frozen all year long although this ice cap is showing signs of shrinkage due to climate change. How long is the Iditarod sled dog race? The Idtiarod sled dog race begins in Wasilla and ends in Nome. It covers approximately 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometres). Why does the sun not rise in Barrow during the winter? / Why does the sun not set in Barrow during the summer? The Earth does not sit level in space. If you were to imagine a large, flat surface that the Earth and Sun sit on, you would notice that the Earth's North Pole does not point straight up, it actually points about 23.45° away from straight up. This tilting of the earth is why Barrow receives so much sun during summer and so much darkness in winter. The picture below illustrates Earth's position in relation to the sun during the four seasons.

In this illustration, the red dot represents the North Pole (off to the side because the Earth does not point straight up), the yellow ring represents the path that Barrow takes as the Earth rotates, and the small green dot represents Barrow's position at mid-day at each of the four locations. Barrow is located relatively near the North Pole (approximately 71° 30" N), making it only about 18° 30" south of the North Pole. Since this is less than the Earth's 23.45° tilt, that means that Barrow has a lot of sunshine when the North Pole is pointed towards the sun in summer. The summer position in the illustration above shows how the Earth's tilt is such that Barrow's entire path is in sunlight during the longest days of summer. The illustration shows how the North Pole is tilted away from the sun during the winter and Barrow's entire path is in shadow. How many miles is it from Alaska to Russia? The Bering Strait is where Alaska and Russia are at their closest. The Russian and Alaskan mainlands are approximately 52 miles/83 km from each other.

That's from the western tip of Alaska's Seward Peninsula and Russia's Chukotsk Peninsula. In the middle of the strait are two Islands, Little Diomede (Alaska) and Big Diomede (Russia). These two islands are about 2.5 miles/4 km apart. Copyright © Douglas Gates WHO WAS FIRST -- Ancient Immigrants Into The Americas - Bering Strait and the Land Bridge The Bering Strait and The Land Bridge The Bering Strait links the Arctic Ocean with the Bering Sea and separates the continents of Asia and North America at their closest point. The strait averages 98 to 164 ft (30 to 50 m) in depth and at its narrowest is about 53 mi (85 km) wide. There are numerous islands in the strait, including the two Diomede Islands (about 6 sq mi [16 sq km]), and to the south of the strait lies St. Lawrence Island (about 1,000 sq mi). The U.S.-Russian boundary extends through the strait. Some of the Bering Sea water passes through the strait into the Arctic Ocean, but most of it returns to the Pacific.

In winter the region is subject to severe storms and the sea is covered by ice fields averaging 4 to 5 ft thick. In mid-summer drift ice remains in the Bering Strait. The strait is named after Vitus Bering, a Danish captain, who sailed into the strait in 1728. Some 20,000 to 25,000 years ago, towards the end of the Pleistocene (Ice Ages), monumental continental glaciers forming in the earth's northern hemisphere (especially in Canada and Greenland) locked up so much water that the world's ocean levels were more than 300 feet lower than today. In the region of the Bering Strait, this drop in sea levels exposed a massive unglaciated tract known the Bering Land Bridge. This bridge joined northeast Asia to modern Alaska and formed part of a much larger province called Beringa. When fully exposed Beringia was over 1000 miles wide. Many scientists presume that it supported a tundra vegetation where Arctic fauna, particularly the caribou, flourished.

For most of the 20th century, archaeologists and anthropologists assumed that the forbears of the Native Americans moved across this land bridge following the game animals. However, towards the end of the 20th century, additional routes by which human beings first reached the Americas were being proposed: following the southern coastline of Beringia and Alaska, then southward along the Pacific coast all the way to the southernmost tip of South America, exploiting the rich marine fauna (shellfish, fish, sea mammals, seaweed) along the way. This coastal route could have been by foot along the beach, or by boat, drifting eastward then southward with the Japanese current. It's also possible that the first humans into the Americas exploited both coastal and interior resources. Below is an article by Don Alan Hall which appeared in the MAMMOTH TRUMPET VOL 12, NO. 2 (1997) which discusses new findings concerning when the Bering Land Bridge was open, what the environmental conditions on the Bridge were like, and what that meant in terms of suitability for human subsistence and use.

Bering Land Bridge Was Open Until After 11,000 Years Ago - Scrub Tundra Grew in Lowland Beringia, Not 'Mammoth Steppe' Just a few decades ago, Beringia, the land linking North America and Asia during glacial times, was a hypothetical concept. But as evidence mounted of biological connections between Siberia and Alaska, and knowledge of changing sea levels came to light, the notion of a land bridge allowing free passage of animals and humans became universally accepted. Until recently, the connection was thought to have been severed by rising sea levels about 14,000 years ago. Now, thanks to research by Scott A. Elias and his colleagues, we know the link remained in place until sometime after 11,000 years ago, probably being flooded about 10,500 years B.P. The event cut the Americas off from Eurasia for the first time in many thousands of years. When the level of the Pacific Ocean rose to within about 40 meters of its present level, it spilled across into the Arctic Ocean. Dr.

Elias, of the University of Colorado's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, is able to tell us much about the lowland that once constituted the land bridge because of careful research employing cores previously collected by the U.S. Geological Survey from the floor of the Chukchi and Bering seas. Not only did the work reveal that the land bridge was open to passage long after scientists thought it had been closed, the research provided new insights into the environment before the continents were separated. Elias found that land bridge lowland had been covered with shrub tundra that would not have provided much food for grazing animals; he found no evidence of the steppe tundra that some believe must have been plentiful to nourish the great Pleistocene bison and mammoth herds with its grasses. However, it is clear that people and animals could have freely crossed the land bridge until after 11,000 years B.P. Elias can describe the paleoenvironment of the land bridge because of research he and his colleagues have done on pollen and the remains of insects and plants. These environmental markers became preserved in shallow pools in the Beringian lowland, and when melting glaciers raised sea levels, the fossils were protected from the flood.

The research had its origins more than a decade ago when the U.S. Geological Survey sailed the U.S. research ship Discovery in the Bering and Chukchi seas to gather geologic and geophysical information. The project included the taking of dozens cores from the sea floor. These cores, about 10 cm in diameter, ranged up to nine meters in length. After the voyage, the USGS stored the cores, sealed in plastic tubes, under refrigeration at Palo Alto and Redwood City, Calif. Elias began his research by looking through the core logs from USGS cruises in the Bering and Chukchi seas. The goal, of course, was to find cores that would yield information about the most-recent terrestrial deposits-- layers that could be expected to contain plant and insect remains. "We picked cores that had organic lenses near their tops," Elias said. "We knew that these organic layers would represent the land bridge." The topmost core material represented Holocene marine sand, deposited after the Pacific Ocean had flooded northward. Below that were sediments from the land bridge. Below the land-bridge sediments the cores revealed an as-yet-unexplained gap in the geologic record--the next sediments are Cretaceous in age.

Elias and his colleagues then went to the USGS storage rooms to look up their chosen cores. It wasn't quite like looking up a reference in the library, because about half of the cores were stored in a refrigerated trailer near the bay at Redwood City. During the Loma Prieta earthquake a few years previously, all the cores in the trailer had fallen from their shelves and they remained in a jumble on the floor. "We had to unload literally the entire contents of the trailer--hundreds of cores--out into the parking lot in order to find the ones we were interested in." They dug the organic lenses out of the cores and took them back to Boulder to extract the fossils. "The organic deposits were easy to differentiate because they are nearly black, whereas the rest of the sediments are nearly sterile marine sands and clays, tan to gray in color." Accurately dating the deposits was a high priority of the research team. Previous land-bridge closure dates had been obtained from radiocarbon analysis of bulk samples, and there was a suspicion of contamination by coal. Elias and his colleagues wet-screened the samples to remove any such material, and chose individual macrofossils for radiocarbon dating by accelerator mass spectrometry.

Elias found that samples of cores taken in the Chukchi Sea could provide the most accurate dating of the submergence of the land bridge. AMS dates from screened peat from cores taken north of Alaska's Cape Lisburne were 11,330 +/- 70 years B.P. (Beta 43952) and 11,000 +/- 60 (Beta 43953). Analysis of the cores, then, indicated that the sea covered the land bridge after 11,000 B.P.; probably by 10,500 B.P. Elias' insect analysis is done the same way archaeologists do faunal analysis of larger animals. "I compare my fossils with modern specimens in museum collections." There are two principal differences between analyzing remains of beetles and remains of mammals--evolution and scale. "As far as we can tell, there has been no evolution of species and no extinction of species during most, if not all, of the Quaternary," he says.

"So 999 out of 1,000 insect fossil specimens have living counterparts in their own species with which to compare ecological requirements and modern distribution patterns." Elias finds insects' small size an advantage. "Insects are far easier to work with than mammals. I have more than 10,000 fossil specimens and 5,000 modern specimens in cabinets in my office, whereas a fossil- and modern-mammal collection of this number of specimens might take a gymnasium to house. I use a low-power stereo-binocular microscope to identify my specimens, but for picture taking, I prefer to use the scanning electron microscope because the images of three-dimensional specimens are sharper." The research went back in time far beyond the final submergence of the land bridge. Elias says that fossil samples fell into three age classes--more than 40,000 years old, 20,000-14,000 years old, and 14,000-11,000 years old. Generally, the oldest period represented an environment of birch-heath-grass tundra with a few shrubs, while the middle period was tundra with fewer heaths.

The latest period again was dominated by birch-heath-grass tundra--moderately moist--and there were small ponds choked with aquatic plants. By 12,000 years B.P. summer temperatures were as warm as they are now and by 11,000 B.P. summers were warmer than Alaska's north slope now experiences. Elias and paleobotanist Susan K. Short (INSTARR) and Hilary H. Birks (University of Bergen Norway) found no evidence for steppe-tundra vegetation at any period. R. Dale Guthrie of the University of Alaska's Institute of Arctic Biology has hypothesized that Beringia was a vast steppe covered with grasses and sagebrush. Dr. Guthrie, an authority on large Pleistocene mammals, argues that Alaska's plentiful fossil record means that Beringia must have offered highly productive grazing to have allowed bison, mammoths, and other grazers to reach such giant size. Elias and his colleagues, however, have not found evidence of extensive expanses of that steppe habitat, nor had earlier work by palynologists. Is Guthrie wrong? "I think that we could easily both be right," said Elias.

"The land bridge may have been a narrow waist of mesic tundra surrounded by steppe-tundra landscapes on either side." He notes that the land bridge probably could not have sustained many big grass eaters. "I don't think that there was much for megafaunal mammals to graze on out there on the land bridge, but they may have migrated across the narrowest part of the Bering Strait region in just a few days." "Based on our evidence, grazing animals and their human hunters probably spent little time on the land bridge. Shrub tundra offers too few food resources for the animals." As far as the timing of human migration across the continental link, Elias doesn't believe evidence that the land bridge was usable until after 11,000 years B.P. has anything to say about when the first people reached North America. "Certainly the new dates mean that the land bridge was available to people until Clovis time, but the land bridge had been open for many thousands of years before then, as well.

Furthermore, you can still walk from Siberia to Alaska across the Bering Strait in winter." Because the water is so shallow, he says, it often freezes completely; Inuit people do travel between Alaska and Siberia to visit friends and relatives. Elias would like to broaden his research by examining deposits from other areas. "First I'd like to get cores from the southern part of the Bering shelf--the south sector of the land bridge." Deposits from cores taken in waters south of the Bering Strait yielded older dates, possibly because the stormier sea caused erosion of the most recent terrestrial deposits. "Second, I'd like to get my hands on cores from the Russian side of the Bering and Chukchi seas." He says Russian scientists took cores there about the same time the USGS was coring on the Alaskan side. "I have recently sent out an e-mail to Russian colleagues in Moscow, trying to find out where these cores are being kept and whether I could get permission to go sample from them. I hope that the cores haven't been lost or thrown out, but with the near-collapse of the Russian science infrastructure, I am worried about the fate of these cores." -- Don Alan Hall

Question: What strait separates Alaska and Russia?
Answer: Bering Strait