North Pole Since 2002, the Russians have also annually established a base, Barneo, close to the Pole. This operates for a few weeks during early spring. Studies in the 2000s predicted that the North Pole may become seasonally ice-free because of Arctic ice shrinkage, with timescales varying from 2016 to the late 21st century or later. The sea depth at the North Pole has been measured at by the Russian Mir submersible in 2007 and at 4,087 m (13,410 ft) by USS "Nautilus" in 1958. The nearest land is usually said to be Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about
North Pole-36 a piece of sea ice that was approximately across. At the moment of disembarkation the station was in so-called to "the Hollow of submariners" between Wrangel island and the North Pole. The vessel "Akademik Fyodorov" carried out the delivery of the expedition to the ice. The station was removed with the nuclear icebreaker NS "Yamal" in the Arctic ocean at the end of August 2009. The evacuation of the station from the drifting ice floe took three days of continuous work. The chief of high-latitude arctic expeditions Vladimir Sokolov supervised the work. North Pole-36 North Pole-36 ("") was the 36th