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Jan Mayen

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: European Geography

   Jan Mayen
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   Jan Mayen
   Orthographic projection centred on Jan Mayen Island.
   Enlarge
   Orthographic projection centred on Jan Mayen Island.

   Jan Mayen Island, a part of the Kingdom of Norway, is a 55 km long
   (southwest-northeast) and 373 km² large arctic volcanic island in the
   Arctic Ocean, partly covered by glaciers. It has two parts: larger
   Nord-Jan and smaller Sør-Jan, both linked by an isthmus 2.5 km wide. It
   lies 600 km north of Iceland, 500 km east of Greenland and 1,000 km
   west of the Norwegian mainland at 70.97° N 8.6° W. The island is
   mountainous, the highest summit being Beerenberg volcano in the north
   (2,277 m). The isthmus is the location of the two largest lakes of the
   island, Sørlaguna (South Lagoon), and Nordlaguna (North Lagoon). A
   third lake is called Ullerenglaguna (Ullereng Lagoon).

Economy

   Jan Mayen Island has no exploitable natural resources. Economic
   activity is limited to providing services for employees of Norway's
   radio and meteorological stations located on the island. It has one
   unpaved airstrip about 1585 meters long, and its 124.1 kilometers of
   coast include no ports or harbors, only offshore anchorages. Commercial
   whaling took place between 1633 and 1640 by the Dutch but ended when
   the Dutch team of seven died of scurvy and the Greenland right whale
   nearly became extinct. A dispute between Norway and Denmark regarding
   the fishing exclusion zone between Jan Mayen and Greenland was settled
   in 1988 granting Denmark with the greater area of sovereignty.

   Jan Mayen is an integrated geographical body of Norway. Since 1995 it
   has been administered by the county governor (fylkesmann) of Nordland;
   however, some authority has been delegated to a station commander of
   the Norwegian Logistics Organisation-CIS, a branch of the armed forces.

Society

   The only inhabitants on the island are personnel working for the Royal
   Norwegian Defence Force or the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.
   There are 14 people who spend the winter on the island, but the
   population may double during the summer, when heavy maintenance is
   performed. Personnel serve either six months or one year, and are
   exchanged twice a year in April and October. The main purpose of the
   military personnel is to operate a Long Range Navigation (Loran-C)
   base. The support crew, including mechanics, cooks and a nurse are
   among the military personnel. Both the LORAN transmitter and the
   meteorological station are located a few kilometers away from the
   settlement Olonkinbyen (English: Olonkin City), where all personnel
   live.

   Transport to the island is provided by C-130 Hercules military
   transport planes operated by the Royal Norwegian Air Force, that land
   at Jan Mayen Airport, which only has a gravel runway. The planes fly in
   from Bodø Main Air Station eight times a year. Since the airport
   doesn't have any instrument landing possibilities, visibility is
   required, and it is not uncommon for the planes to have to return to
   Bodø, two hours away, without landing. For heavy goods, freight ships
   come during the summer. But there are no harbours and the ships must
   anchor up.

   The island is inhabited by personnel operating a Long Range Navigation
   (Loran-C) base with a staff of 14 and a weather services station with a
   staff of four. The staff members of both stations live in Olonkinbyen
   (English: Olonkin City), as the living quarters by the Loran-C base are
   called. The airport is situated near the town.

   The island has no indigenous population, but is assigned the ISO 3166-1
   alpha-2 country code SJ, the Internet country code top-level domain (
   ccTLD) .no ( .sj is allocated but not used) and data code JN. Its
   amateur radio call sign prefix is JX.

History

   The first certain discovery of the island is from 1614. There are
   earlier claims and possible discoveries, even as early as the early 6th
   century. Some historians believe that an Irish monk, Brendan, who was
   known as a good sailor, was close to Jan Mayen in the early 6th
   century. He came back from one of his voyages and reported that he had
   been close to a black island, which was on fire, and that there was a
   terrible noise in the area. He thought that he might have found the
   entrance to hell. Viking sailors are also believed to have known about
   the island.

   The island is named after the Dutchman Jan Jacobs May van Schellinkhout
   who visited the island in 1614. His first mate did some mapping of the
   coast and named the island Jan Mayen.

   It is assumed that Henry Hudson discovered the island in 1607 and
   called it Hudson's Tutches or Touches. Thereafter it was observed
   several times by navigators who claimed its discovery and renamed it.
   Thus, in 1611 or the following year whalers from Hull named it Trinity
   Island; in 1612 Jean Vrolicq, a French whaler, called it Île de
   Richelieu; and in 1614 English captain John Clarke named it Isabella.

   In 1882-83 a Hungarian-Austrian expedition stayed one year at Jan Mayen
   performed extensive mapping of the area, their maps being used until
   the 1950s. Between 1900 and 1920 there were also a number of Norwegian
   trappers, spending the winters on Jan Mayen, white and blue foxes in
   addition to some polar bears. But the exploitation soon made the
   profits decline, and the hunting ended.

   The first meteorolgical station was opened in 1921 by the Norwegian
   Meteorological Institute, who annexed the island in 1922 for Norway. By
   law of February 27, 1930 the island was made part of the Kingdom of
   Norway. During World War II Jan Mayen was not occupied by Germans as
   continental Norway was in 1940, but still the meterologists chose to
   burn down the station. In 1941 they returned with soldiers to rebuild
   the station. In 1943 the Americans established a radio locating station
   named Atlantic City to try to locate German radio bases on Greenland.

   After the war the meteorological station was located at Atlantic City,
   but moved in 1949 to a new location. Radio Jan Mayen also served as an
   important radio station for ship traffic in the Arctic Ocean. In 1959
   NATO decided to build the Loran-C network in the Atlantic Ocean, and
   one of the transmitters had to be on Jan Mayen. By 1961 the new
   military installations, including a new air field was operational.

   For some time scientists doubted if there could be any activity in the
   volcano Beerenberg, but in 1970 the volcano erupted, and added another
   3 square km of land mass to the island during the 3-4 weeks it lasted.
   It had more eruptions in 1973 and in 1985, the last until this date.
   During an eruption the sea temperature around the island may increase
   from just over zero Celsius to about 30 degrees.

   Historic stations and huts on the island are Hoyberg, Vera, Olsbu,
   Puppebu (cabin), Gamlemetten or Gamlestasjonen (the old weather
   station), Jan Mayen Radio, Helenehytta, Margarethhytta, and Ulla (a
   cabin at the foot of the Beerenberg).
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Mayen"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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