Permafrost Museum (37 photos)

Igarka is now experiencing is not the best of times. But dying town in the Arctic Circle there is a museum, which has no analogues neither in Russia nor in the world. This Museum of the permafrost that is based on the Igarka permafrost station from the 1930s studying permafrost and its properties.
On the outskirts of the old town, surrounded by the dead and the ruins of the houses, is a small building whose walls are decorated with carvings of mammoths. In this house there is a small exhibition, and most importantly - the entrance to the cave. Workers permafrost station and museum in the thick permafrost was knocked out a real mine with underground rooms and corridors multimeter. There, in the depth of permafrost strata, few guides lead visitors to the museum.
The deepest point of the mine at a depth of 14 meters below the surface - there segregation layer of ice reaches quite considerable thickness. Several halls are frozen in the ice plate samples of plants, are chunks of ice from the Yenisei River and Ice Mountain - mestoproyavleniya buried ice age about 50,000 years. In one of the drifts of the wall sticking out tree trunks - 70 thousand years ago, they were buried under a layer of sand and clay and found preserved permafrost.
Stele of the road to the museum.





One of the exhibits - Frozen in ice plates medicinal plants.



Descend to a depth of 14 meters. Clearly visible bands of segregated ice in the breed.



Since the museum building looks from the outside.



Upstairs deployed a small exhibition, which visitors inspect before descending into the earth. The guide shows us a piece of mammoth tusk.



65% of Russia takes the permafrost.



On the tour.



Come on down. The thicker the permafrost temperature is almost constant - minus 4 degrees. But at the top - all -15, so that the walls of buildings are covered with frost.



Entrance to the dungeon.



At a depth of 4, 5 meters in decorating is a window through which the visible piece of permafrost strata.



Stairs in the mine shaft.



Deeper lining is no longer - the ice is well cemented rock preventing its shattering. If you maintain the correct temperature regime - a dungeon retained unchanged. But in the 1980s could not do that, and there have been several collapses - the museum was closed for a long time.



Horizontal gallery at around -10 m.



Snow decoration around the lamps - purely decorative, the temperature conditions are not affected.



Dungeon has a complex shape. We go up to the mark -7 meters, the hall floor with the ice, ice samples and plants.



Many ice crystals have skeletal shape - they grew very fast, normally developing not all faces. This - the frozen breath of previous visitors.



But not everyone knows that ice - also mineral ...



The plant in the ice plate.



A bit like an art gallery. The ice floor of the hall has a thickness of more than two meters, and there are half a century ago was frozen in a box with newspapers of the war years - the descendants of the message ...



Yenisei ice - clean, but with air bubbles.



Main Gallery. Until recently, it was owned by permafrost station in camera otvershkah experiments were conducted. Now all of dungeon given to the museum.



We examine the instruments permafrost.



Ice crystals in one of them.



Doors isolated from one another camera otvershki.



In one of the cameras made specifically for children "home of Santa Claus."



At the far side of the gallery has other crystals.



An author of the journal examines some device.



Guys are all interesting.



The exhibition, dedicated to the Ice Mountain - mestoproyavleniyu relic of ice in the valley of the Yenisei River south of Igarka.



Emergency exit.



At one point sticking out of the wall drift trunks and branches - about 70 thousand years ago, they were buried under sediment and preserved by permafrost.



Last camera and a device for determining mechanical strength of permafrost.



Main Gallery. On the left wall is visible sensor thermometer.



It looks like this type of permafrost at a depth of 12 meters.



The layers of segregated ice achieve here is quite considerable thickness. The very same rock - dense clay.



The deepest part of the dungeon. The geological conditions are such that it was necessary to put the supports. Elevation -14 meters, ordinary ekskrsantov here no longer drive.



Rises. The tour is over.

Now the museum - in fact, the only stable working venture Igarka. On the international grants was repaired dungeon, which for several years stood closed due to an emergency condition. The museum and the road to the Vankor - are the two main supports of Igarka in our time. We wish that this trans-polar city does not suffer the fate of Mangazeya, Pustozersk, Yermakovo! ...

via af1461.livejournal.com



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