The Lena Islands are the northernmost land on Abyssia. On Earth, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge runs up through Iceland, and then, at least in the popular imagination, it fades away under the ice. Wrong! The crustal spreading zone (and its associated ridges and trenches) zigzags up into the Arctic Ocean, crossing it as the Nansen Ridge (or the Gakkel Ridge on some maps), then winding (though far less active, and less visible) deep into Asia along the Lena Valley to Lake Baikal, where it becomes quite active and visible again in that mile-deep lake. But its lowest point is the Molloy Deep, off Spitsbergen and northern Greenland.

On Abyssia, therefore, with altitudes inverted, this trench becomes an island chain running over two thousand km through the Arctic. Overall, the Lenas form an L shape, with the largest and most fertile islands, Lena and Molloy, at the ends of the chain; the middle swings within five degrees of the North Pole, and a side cluster of islands, the Frams, reaches 87 degrees north; they're entirely icecapped, calving bergs into the polar sea: little Greenlands.

But the ends of the chain, between 75 and 80 north, are merely Arctic; the two long islands ending the chain, Lena and Molloy, are cold but fertile, with tundra on the shores and plains, and even low forest on the sheltered south shores below glaciated mountains. All land on Earth at this latitude is still iced over; but on Abyssia, the treeline and tundra line both extend much further north. The tips of the chain are merely Alaskan, not polar.

Why? Is Abyssia's CO2 level high? Not at all. The reason's geographic, not atmospheric. Abyssia lacks land at the poles to build up substantial icecaps like our Greenland or Antarctica. The height of our polar ice-domes, not just their latitude, cools their tops to near-Martian temperatures; winds off these icefields spread foul weather and cool the climate for thousands of km around them. Without these dubious gifts, the Abyssian poles are much milder in climate. Though winter ice is extensive, it's less than a meter thick and melts entirely each summer.

Still, the Lena chain has the doubtful honor of being the coldest land on Abyssia. Worse, it's a double whammy: Lena's the loneliest land, too--as isolated as Earth's Hawaii or Easter Island (though given their climates, that sounds ironic). Lena and Molloy, at the ends of the chain, are nearly 3000 km (ca. 1800 mi) from the nearest land; the isles in the middle are worse.

Truly solitary outcroppings of land like Lena are quite rare on Abyssia; its low, small, but widely scattered islands and minicontinents form strings like the drops on a spiderweb, or galactic superclusters. Lena's only rivals for loneliness are the tiny Greek Islands--and they will, at least, certainly have been discovered, given that they're inside a broad arc of settled, populous lands. But I'm not so sure about the Lenas. Unless and until the Abyssians develop deep-sea vessels capable of very long voyages in foul weather, and navigators willing to brave the Arctic cold in search of summer shortcuts across the poles--essentially, slow-motion versions of the polar flightpaths saving time and fuel for our transcontinental flights--I wonder if the Lena chain will ever be discovered at all.

If so, it'll be a splendid opportunity for an Abyssian Darwin. Lenan life will abound in extraordinary adaptations for cold found nowhere else in the world. If our Lena-Darwin has any imagination at all, she'll wonder what sort of world it would have been, if whole continents had this frightful climate; could megafauna have developed, adapted for long hard freezes and deep snows--migrating south, or storing up summer fat and fasting in winter, or perhaps even hibernating? Would life have taken a completely different path? What strange abilities would such life have?

In short, she might very well dream of Earth--not even Ice Age Earth, just temperate Earth. But she won't publish such speculations. Fantasies of a crazy ecology! No, the pikas and seabirds of Lena, able to touch frozen water without pain and shock, are surely bizarre enough. She'll stick to the strict facts of these modest extremophiles, not their implications for life's plasticity; and still, at first, probably be disbelieved. Life in the snow? Absurd.

The following route snakes around Abyssia's major lands; italicized names have no pages yet.

the Lena Is. (brr!) - the Greek Is. - Atlantis -- Azorea -- Nazca and Chilea -- Morningtonia -- Agassiz -- South Pacifica -- East Pacifica -- Hawaiian Sea -- Pacifica Desert -- Filipinia -- Vanuatu and Banda Is. -- Tasman Is. -- Diamantina Pen. -- Whartonia -- Chagosia -- Somalia -- Mascarenia -- Crozetia -- Weddellia -- Argenta -- Pernambuco -- Angolia -- Tristania -- Agulhas -- Natalia --

Abyssia's homepage - map - (don't click yet) peoples of Abyssia - (don't click yet) Abyssia's evolution - regional tours - (don't click yet) Gazetteer

LISTS AND LINKS: More worlds? Planetocopia! - dreams of other worlds - ecology - climate change - evolution - natural disasters - terraforming - sculptures and 3D art -

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sh - Si-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites