Country Experience: Russian Far East - Kamchatka
East of Siberia is the Russian far east frontier on the Bering Strait - the Kamchatka Peninsula, home of bears, wild salmon and volcanoes. The principal town is Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia's most northerly port on its Eastern seaboard, has a natural harbour, home to the former communists' eastern nuclear submarine fleet.
Cold and wild, Kamchatka is part of the Pacific "Fire Rim" and contains a number of mineral deposits of relatively young age. It is Russia's equivalent of Alaska. JSD has been there evaluating a number of these deposits throughout the peninsula.
More recently John had an assignment in the Kola Peninsula, near Murmansk. The site was some 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle and involved visiting one of the world's largest below ground phosphate mines and some equally impressive open pits.
The old open pit
The open pit waste stacker