ARKHANGELSK, August 1. /TASS/. During the Arctic Floating University expedition, specialists picked a location on the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya's Severny Island for drilling a well to monitor permafrost, the expedition leader Alexander Saburov told TASS.
"Nikita Demidov of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute has chosen a location on Cape Zhelaniya for drilling a thermometric well for background monitoring of permafrost conditions. This monitoring point will be the second on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, as the first one - the Malye Karmakuly Islands - was organized in 2024. The new point will help track the dynamics of permafrost changes at the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya," he said.
The Malye Karmakuly monitoring point is on Novaya Zemlya's Severny Island. It will be for the first time that scientists arrange a permafrost observation point in the archipelago's north. The selected point is on the sea terrace, near the automatic weather station at Cape Zhelaniya. Novaya Zemlya's northern tip is a key point of the Northern Sea Route system.
The Professor Molchanov scientific research vessel with the Arctic Floating University expedition onboard departed from Arkhangelsk on July 9. The project's sponsors and partners are Russia's Ministry of Science and Higher Education, VTB Bank (the general sponsor), the Russian Geographical Society, the Norilsk Nickel Company, and the Floating University Coordination Center based at MIPT.