Geoscience Reference
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Figure 2.13. Physiography of the Arctic lands, showing topography and major river
systems (courtesy of R. Lammers, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH). (See
plate section for color version.)
plateaus are prominent in the eastern Canadian Arctic, coastal regions bordering
the Greenland Ice Sheet, interior Alaska, northeastern Siberia, and Scandinavia.
The highest mountain north of the Arctic Circle is Gunnbjorns Fjaeld (86.92°N,
29.87°W), which rises to 3,800 m some 80 km inland from the East Greenland coast
in Knud Rasmusen Land. In eastern Baffin Island there are peaks exceeding 2,100
m, but, in general, the dissected plateaus are around 1,500-1,800 m elevation. On
Devon and Ellesmere islands, ice caps rise to 1,900-2,000 m. In northern Alaska, the
Brooks Range rises to 1,500-3,000 m. The higher peaks in the more massive sub-
arctic Alaska Range typically exceed 3,000 m. The Alaska Range contains Denali
(Mount McKinley), the highest mountain in North America, with an elevation of
6,194 m. There are numerous mountain ranges in northeastern Siberia. There are
several north-south mountain ranges east of the Lena River. From the Arctic Circle
at 140-145°E, the Momsky-Chersky ranges, with peaks rising to 2,500-3,100 m,
stretch southeastward. The Okhotsk-Kolyma mountain ranges of Chukhotka rise to
1,800-2,100 m.
Of the permanent ice masses (glaciers, ice caps, and ice sheets), the Greenland
Ice Sheet is the most prominent and is by far the largest ice mass of the Northern
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