MOSCOW, September 30 (RIA Novosti) - The crew of the Baltic fleet research vessel “Admiral Vladimirsky” has hunted down a small island in the East Siberian Sea Tuesday, LifeNews reports.
Amid its scientific tasks scheduled for its round-the-world expedition, the vessel had to check whether a small piece of land called Yaya actually existed.
The vessel, on its round-the-world scientific expedition, was approaching the port of Pevek to restock and refuel when the discovery was made. Scientists had studied the photos taken by the 1913 Hydrographic Expedition depicting Vasilyevsky, a glacial 15-meter high island which supposedly had melted down to the small size of Yaya.
As measured, the latter is a tiny one-meter-high island of about 500 square meters in area. A research drill showed it is constituted mainly of sand. Despite its small size, scientists predict the island will exist for many years.
At the end of 2013 a helicopter crew spotted a previously unknown island. They conducted a second flight to mark it on the map. At first, they were going to name it “Bounty” as its lagoon reminded them of the island in the well-known advertisement. But then they started arguing over who was the discoverer, ending up with each crew member saying “Ya, ya” (meaning “me” in Russian). That’s how the island’s name was born.
