VI
As editors we wish to thank all contributing authors. In this respect we particularly
acknowledge the support of the critical referees (who are too numerous to mention by names)
who have gone through the papers of this book trying to help to maintain a scientific standard
of an international volume. We are further grateful to B. Rohr for her tenacity as editor's
assistant, P. P. Overduin for proofreading most of the papers, and H. Cremer for helping to
improve the layout of the book.
The political changes which have occurred since the late 80's have made this project possible
and we are extraordinarily grateful that those who carry the responsibility for political and
administrative decisions have used this time of political change to make such bilateral RussianGerman projects possible, and that they had confidence in the participants to establish the
required close and intense cooperation, both in the field as well as at their home institutes.
We are devoting this book to the memory of the explorers who lost their lives in this part of
the Arctic in their courageous attempts to fulfil their devotion to science. They range from
members of the American "Jeanette" expedition under their leader George W. De Long (18791881) to several participants of the Russian "Sarja" expedition (1900 - 1902) under Baron
Eduard von Toll, and include the tragic disappearance (1997) of the head of the international
biological Lena-NordenskiOld Station to the North of Tiksi Semen Semenovich Isakov from
Yakutsk, Rep. Sakha.
The Editors
Kiel, Bremerhaven, Potsdam, St. Petersburg, Fairbanks
As editors we wish to thank all contributing authors. In this respect we particularly
acknowledge the support of the critical referees (who are too numerous to mention by names)
who have gone through the papers of this book trying to help to maintain a scientific standard
of an international volume. We are further grateful to B. Rohr for her tenacity as editor's
assistant, P. P. Overduin for proofreading most of the papers, and H. Cremer for helping to
improve the layout of the book.
The political changes which have occurred since the late 80's have made this project possible
and we are extraordinarily grateful that those who carry the responsibility for political and
administrative decisions have used this time of political change to make such bilateral RussianGerman projects possible, and that they had confidence in the participants to establish the
required close and intense cooperation, both in the field as well as at their home institutes.
We are devoting this book to the memory of the explorers who lost their lives in this part of
the Arctic in their courageous attempts to fulfil their devotion to science. They range from
members of the American "Jeanette" expedition under their leader George W. De Long (18791881) to several participants of the Russian "Sarja" expedition (1900 - 1902) under Baron
Eduard von Toll, and include the tragic disappearance (1997) of the head of the international
biological Lena-NordenskiOld Station to the North of Tiksi Semen Semenovich Isakov from
Yakutsk, Rep. Sakha.
The Editors
Kiel, Bremerhaven, Potsdam, St. Petersburg, Fairbanks