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Spitsbergen was covered in 21,977 km 2 (8,485 sq mi) of ice in 1999, which was approximately 58.5% of the island's total area. The island was first used as a whaling base in the 17th and 18th centuries, after which it was abandoned. Coal mining started at the end of the 19th century, and several permanent communities were established.
The activity was most extensive at the end of the 18th century, when an estimated 100 to 150 overwintered. [22] Unlike the whaling, Pomor activity was sustainable, they alternated stations between seasons and did not deplete the natural resources. [23] Andrée's base on Danes Island
The exonym Spitsbergen subsequently came to be applied to the main island in the archipelago. [ 11 ] [ 12 ] Accordingly, in modern historiography the Treaty of Spitsbergen is commonly referred to anachronistically as the Svalbard Treaty to reflect the name change.
Barentsz did not recognize that he had discovered an archipelago, and consequently the name Spitsbergen long remained in use both for the main island and for the archipelago as a whole. [16] Later the main island was sometimes distinguished as West Spitsbergen. The spelling Spitzbergen, with z instead of s, derives from German. [17]
Operation Gauntlet was an Allied Combined Operation from 25 August until 3 September 1941, during the Second World War.Canadian, British and the Norwegian armed forces in exile (Utefronten, Outside Front) landed on the Norwegian island of Spitzbergen in the Svalbard Archipelago, 650 mi (1,050 km) south of the North Pole.
Operation Zitronella, also known as Unternehmen Sizilien (Operation Sicily), was an eight-hour German raid on Spitzbergen, in the Svalbard Archipelago, on 8 September 1943.
In November 1944, the Soviet Union proposed to annul the Spitsbergen Treaty with the intention of gaining sovereignty over Bear Island. Negotiations with Trygve Lie of the Norwegian government-in-exile did not lead to an agreement by the end of World War II, and the Soviet proposals were never carried out. [2]
Additionally, there is a dispute regarding the severity of the extinction and whether the extinction in China happened at the same time as the extinction in Spitsbergen. [25] According to one study, the Capitanian mass extinction was not one discrete event but a continuous decline in diversity that began at the end of the Wordian. [26]