Yakov Yakovlevich Gakkel (July 18, 1901, Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 — December 30, 1965, Leningrad

Leningrad

Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...

) was a Soviet oceanographer, doctor of geographical sciences (1950), professor, director of the geography department of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute

Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute

The Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, or AARI is the oldest and largest Russian research institute in the field of comprehensive studies of Arctic and Antarctica...

, son of a scientist Yakov Modestovich Gakkel.

Yakov Gakkel participated in numerous Arctic

Arctic

The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...

 expeditions, including the ones on icebreakers Sibiryakov

Icebreaker Sibiryakov

The icebreaker Sibiryakov was a Soviet ship which was active in the Russian Arctic during the 1930s. She was built in 1909 in Glasgow and was originally the Newfoundland sealing steamer Bellaventure. After being purchased by Russia in 1916, she was renamed the Sibiryakov...

 (1932) and Chelyuskin

Chelyuskin steamship

SS Chelyuskin was a Soviet steamship reinforced to navigate through polar ice that became ice-bound in Arctic waters during navigation along the Northern Maritime Route from Murmansk to Vladivostok...

 (1934). He was the first one to create a bathymetric map of the Arctic basin.

Yakov Gakkel was awarded two orders and several medals during his scientific career. In 1966, one of the mid-oceanic ridge

Gakkel Ridge

The Gakkel Ridge is a mid-oceanic ridge, a divergent tectonic plate boundary between the North American Plate and the Eurasian Plate. It is located in the Arctic Ocean between Greenland and Siberia, and has a length of about 1,800 kilometers...

s was named after him.