Severnaya Zemlya any traces of land to the north of the wide strait between the Kara Sea and the Laptev Sea that they navigated. The archipelago was not put on the map until the 1913–1915 Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition of icebreakers "Taimyr" and "Vaigach". The chief organiser and first captain of the Vaygach was officer Aleksandr Vasiliyevich Kolchak of the Imperial Russian Navy. The expedition was privately financed and was launched in 1910, being led by Boris Vilkitsky on behalf of the Russian Hydrographic Service. This venture accomplished its goal of exploring the uncharted areas of the continental side of the Northern
Barents Sea (temperature <0 °C, salinity <35) from the north, and warm, but not very salty coastal water (temperature >3 °C, salinity <34.7). Between the Atlantic and Polar waters, a front called the Polar Front is formed. In the western parts of the sea (close to Bear Island), this front is determined by the bottom topography and is therefore relatively sharp and stable from year to year, while in the east (towards Novaya Zemlya), it can be quite diffuse and its position can vary a lot between years. The lands of Novaya Zemlya attained most of their early Holocene coastal deglaciation approximately