Scott Hansen Islands

The Scott Hansen Islands ( _ru. Острова Скотт-Гансена, "Ostrova Skott-Gansena") is a group of three small islands covered with tundra vegetation. It is located in the Kara Sea, about 20 km from the tip of the Mikhailov Peninsula in the coast of Siberia.

The westernmost island is larger than the other two, but even so it is only about 3 Km in length. The individual islands don't have separate names in common maps and are thus named as a group.The sea surrounding these islands is covered with pack ice with some polynias in the winter and there are many ice floes even in the summer.

The Scott-Hansen group belongs to the Krasnoyarsk Krai administrative division of Russia. It is part of the Great Arctic State Nature Reserve, the largest nature reserve of Russia.

This archipelago is named after Sigurd Scott Hansen, a Norwegian naval lieutenant, who was in charge of the astronomical and meteorological observations during Fridtjof Nansen's 1893 polar expedition on the "Fram". In many maps these islands appear with the name Scott-Gansen Islands; this version of the name is inspired by the Russian spelling.

References

* http://worldmaps.web.infoseek.co.jp/russia_guide.htm
* http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic27-1-2.pdf
* Nature Reserve: http://www.bigarctic.ru/Eng

ee also

* Kara Sea
* Fridtjof Nansen