Cape Anisy 76°12′00″N 139°07′00″E / 76.200°N 139.1167°E / 76.200; 139.1167 is the northernmost headland of Kotelny and it is an important geographical point for it marks the NE limit of the Laptev Sea.

The Permian to Jurassic strata exposed within Kotelny Island consist of interbedded, fossiliferous mudstones, siltstones, and sandstones.

[6][7] Pleistocene to Holocene fluvial sediments, which range in age from 1,500 to greater than 55,000 radiocarbon years BP, underlie stream terraces that lie within the Balyktakh and Dragotsennaya River valleys.

[8] Within Bunge Land and the southwest corner of Kotelny Island, relatively unconsolidated sediments ranging in age from Early Cretaceous to Holocene overlie the above folded and faulted sedimentary rocks.

The oldest of these sediments are Early Cretaceous alluvial clays, silts, and sands that contain layers of conglomerate, tuff, tuffaceous sandstone, coal, and, at top, rhyolite.

Only in the central and southern parts of Bunge Land do either Late to Early Pleistocene marine sediments or very small patches of highly weathered Prequaternary deposits and bedrock underlie the surface.

Three very small and isolated exposures indicate that the Early Cretaceous strata are similar to those found in the southwest corner of Kotelny Island.

Overlying the Early Cretaceous sediments are alluvial and lacustrine Eocene clays and silts that contains rare beds of sands, brown coal, and gravel.

The Eocene sediments are overlain by fossiliferous, terrestrial and marine Oligocene to Miocene sands that contain subordinate beds of mud, clay, gravel, and brown coal.

A layer of Late Pleistocene and Holocene alluvial and lacustrine deposits largely cover the central and southern parts of Faddeyevsky Island.

Numerous baydzharakhs, thermokarst mounds, dot the landscape; they are the result of the melting of polygonal ice wedges within the permafrost.

[12] Kotelny Island has a harsh arctic climate, with temperatures only reaching above freezing briefly in the short summer months.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the base was evacuated and only a civilian arctic research station remained located on the island.

In late 2013, the first steps were taken to reactivate the base, with a temporary airstrip for flying in supplies and personnel established by a Russian naval task force that visited the New Siberian Islands during September 2013.

Other initial infrastructure and supplies for the base, along with associated personnel were landed by the task force, whose flagship was the Kirov class Battlecruiser Petr Velikiy.

[citation needed] Part of the action of Jules Verne's novel César Cascabel (1890), takes place on Kotelny Island.