Laptev Sea

sea in Arctic Ocean

AI overview

The Laptev Sea is a body of water in the Arctic Ocean located off the northern coast of Russia. It is one of the least explored and most ice-covered seas in the world, making it important for understanding Arctic ecosystems and global climate patterns.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Wikidata facts

Instance of: marginal sea
Part of: Arctic Ocean
Named after: Khariton Laptev
Country: Russian Empire
Area: 700000
Image: Анабарский залив.jpg
Perimeter: 1300

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Commons category: Laptev Sea
topic's main category: Category:Laptev Sea
basin country: Russia
vertical depth: 3385
native label: Лаптевтар байҕаллара
inflows: Uele
on focus list of Wikimedia project: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4

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Encyclopedic overview

The Laptev Sea (/ˈlæptɛv, ˈlɑːp-/) 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 Russian explorers Dmitry Laptev and Khariton Laptev; formerly, it had been known under various names, the last being Nordenskiöld Sea (Russian: мо́ре Норденшёльда), after explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld. The sea has a severe climate with temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F) for more than nine months per year; low water salinity; scarcity of flora, fauna, and human population; and shallow depths (mostly less than 50 meters). It is frozen most of the time, though generally clear in August and September.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Laptev Sea” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.