List of minor planets: 15001–16000

Kolyma

Kolyma (Russian: Колыма́, IPA: [kəlɨˈma]) is a region located in the Russian Far East. It is bounded by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Sea of Okhotsk to the south. The region gets its name from the Kolyma River and mountain range, parts of which were not discovered until 1926. Today the region consists roughly of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug and the Magadan Oblast.

The area, part of which is within the Arctic Circle, has a subarctic climate with very cold winters lasting up to six months of the year. Permafrost and tundra cover a large part of the region. Average winter temperatures range from -19 °C to -38 °C (even lower in the interior), and average summer temperatures, from +3 °C to +16 °C. There are rich reserves of gold, silver, tin, tungsten, mercury, copper, antimony, coal, oil, and peat. Twenty-nine zones of possible oil and gas accumulation have been identified in the Sea of Okhotsk shelf. Total reserves are estimated at 3.5 billion tons of equivalent fuel, including 1.2 billion tons of oil and 1.5 billion m³ of gas.

Kolyma (disambiguation)

Kolyma is a vast region in Siberia, Russia.

Kolyma may also refer to any of the following:

See also

Kolyma River

The Kolyma River (Russian: Колыма́; IPA: [kəlɨˈma]) is a river in northeastern Siberia, whose basin covers parts of the Sakha Republic, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, and Magadan Oblast of Russia. It begins at the confluence of the Kulu River and the Ayan Yuryakh River and empties into the Kolyma Gulf (Kolymskiy Zaliv) of the East Siberian Sea, a division of the Arctic Ocean, at 69°30′N 161°30′E / 69.500°N 161.500°E / 69.500; 161.500. The Kolyma is 2,129 kilometres (1,323 mi) long. The area of its basin is 644,000 square kilometres (249,000 sq mi).

The Kolyma is frozen to depths of several metres for about 250 days each year, becoming free of ice only in early June, until October.

History

In 1640 Dimitry Zyryan (also called Yarilo or Yerilo) went overland to the Indigirka. In 1641 he sailed down the Indigirka, went east and up the Alazeya. Here they heard of the Kolyma and met Chukchis for the first time. In 1643 he returned to the Indigirka, sent his yasak to Yakutsk and went back to the Alazeya. In 1645 he returned to the Lena where he met a party and learned that he had been appointed prekazshchik of the Kolyma. He returned east and died in early 1646. In the winter of 1641–42 Mikhail Stadukhin, accompanied by Semyon Dezhnyov, went overland to the upper Indigirka. He spent the next winter there, built boats and sailed down the Indigirka and east to the Alazeya where he met Zyryan. Zyryan and Dezhnyov stayed at the Alazeya, while Stadukhin went east, reaching the Kolyma in the summer of 1644. They built a zimovye, probably at Srednekolymsk and returned to Yakutsk in late 1645.