Novaya Zemlya largest number of fjords in the Russian Federation. Novaya Zemlya separates the Barents Sea from the Kara Sea. The total area is about . The highest mountain is located on the Northern island and is 1,547 meters (5,075 ft) high. Compared to other regions that were under large ice sheets during the last glacial period, Novaya Zemlya shows relatively little isostatic rebound. Possibly this is indebted to a counter-effect created by the growth of glaciers during the last few thousand years. The ecology of Novaya Zemlya is influenced by its severe climate, but the region nevertheless supports a diversity of
Severnaya Zemlya as Arctic lemming, which is present on all of the large islands and, in some places has been recorded to reach a density of 500 per km (1,300 per sq mi). The Arctic fox ("Alopex lagopus") has been known to den on the islands, with several hundred observed in the 1980s. Other mammals occasionally observed include the wolf ("Canis lupus"), the polar bear ("Ursus maritimus"), ermine ("Mustela erminea"), Arctic hare ("Lepus timidus"), and reindeer ("Rangifer tarandus"). The discovery of Severnaya Zemlya is the subject of Veniamin Kaverin's novel "The Two Captains" as well as its stage adaptation, "Nord-Ost". Severnaya Zemlya