Malozemelskaia Tundra

Malozemel’skaia Tundra 

a lowland between the Timan Ridge and the lower course of the Pechora River in Nenets National Okrug, Arkhangel’sk Oblast, RSFSR. Along the Sula River in the south it borders on the Pechora Lowland.

The relief of the tundra is level; there are marine terraces up to 60-80 m high along the coast of the Barents Sea and a slightly hilly morainic plain in the central part with individual hills and ridges to 140-180 m (the main one, Nenets Ridge, has elevations to 140 m). In the basins of the Sula, Soima, and Indiga rivers is a vast depression, which is very marshy and contains lakes. It is composed of Anthropogene marine and continental sediments. Along the seacoast there are offshore bars, dunes, and deflation basins (ersei [tortuous swampy canal between peaty hummocks]). There are numerous thermokarst lakes throughout the tundra. The large lakes—Urdiuzhskoe and Indiga, for example—are of glacial origin. The climate is severe, with long winters (mean January temperature from —16° to — 17°C) and short, cool summers (mean July temperature of 12°C in the south and to 8°C in the north). Precipitation is 300-350 mm a year. In the north and the central part there is moss, lichen, and brush tundra vegetation; in the south and in the valleys there are open boreal woodlands. Hilly, pool-type bogs are very common. The principal occupations are reindeer breeding, fishing, and fur trading; there is a fish cannery.

I. I. KRASNOV