August 1961

Flying the Soviet flag, the nuclear icebreaker Lenin plows north, trailed by the icebreaker Yermak. Borne by such vessels and by aircraft, the Soviets probed the Arctic Ocean for decades, seeking military advantage in the Cold War and amassing vast stores of environmental data. Information derived from this archive is now being made public, along with rare photographs of the Russian scientists at work, National Geographic, February 1997