ARKHANGELSK, November 5. /TASS/. The Mesyatsev Island of the Franz Josef Land archipelago disappeared, the Russian Geographical Society's website reads. The fact was reported by school and university students who participate in the RISKSAT project group, led by Associate Professor at the Moscow Aviation Institute Alexey Kucheiko.

"An ice formation, previously called the Mesyatsev Island, near the Eva-Liv Island of the Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Arctic, has disappeared," the website quoted him as saying. "We followed it in 2020-2022, and by now the island has finally melted away, thus navigation maps need to be corrected accordingly."

The group was observing the object for several years. By analyzing satellite images of the Earth's remote sensing from open archives, the students study how to process data for project research on various topics related to ecology, nature protection, consequences of accidents and emergency situations.

According to satellite imagery, the Mesyatsev Island emerged before 1995 from the Mesyatsev Peninsula as a consequence of the glacier melting on the Eva-Liv Island. This was confirmed in 2018 by Arctic Archipelagos expedition, and in 2021 - by specialists of the Russian Arctic National Park.

"On old maps and on Soviet maps of the mid-20th century, there was a peninsula in the north of the Eva Liv Island. In the 1990s, a strait appeared there thus forming the Mesyatsev Island. Satellite images showed the island's decrease in size," Evgeny Ermolov, head of the Russian Arctic National Park's Department for Preservation of Historical and Cultural Heritage, told TASS. "Most likely, it was a glacier that descended from the Eva Liv Island to the shoal, thus forming an ice peninsula. Due to the warming, at first, melted the isthmus, and now the island has disappeared." The island used to be a walrus rookery, and thus the animals had to move to another place.

As of August 19, 2015, the Mesyatsev Island's area was about 53 hectares, and on an image of August 12, 2024, there was a small ice island of 3 hectares. A month later (on September 13, 2024), the island finally disappeared from images. In the future, specialists will conduct additional research to confirm the Mesyatsev Island's disappearance and to identify possible changes in the seabed topography.

About the national park

The Russian Arctic National Park is Russia's northernmost and biggest specially protected natural area that includes the Franz Josef Land archipelago and the northern part of the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. The national park's territory is a most hard-to-reach territory both in Russia, and in the world.