Past Permafrost Records in Arctic Siberia (Past Permafrost)
Two joint Russian-German land expeditions to the Dimitrii Laptev Strait (Bol’shoy Lyakhovsky Island, Oyogos Yar coast) and to the lower Kolyma River (Duvanny Yar site) were carried out as part of the IPY project „Past Permafrost records in Arctic Siberia“ (ID 15) with 10 and 6 participants during the summers of 2007 and 2008. Scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI, Potsdam), the Russian Centre of Arctic and Antarctic Research (AARI, St. Petersburg), the Melnikov Institute of Permafrost Research (Yakutsk), the Moscow State University (MSU, Moscow) and the Russian Institute of Physicochemical and Biological Problems in Soil Science (IPBSS/RAS, Pushchino) took part on this field work. The permafrost sequences that we studied showed signs of interglacial permafrost degradation (e.g. Eemian and Holocene ice wedge casts, lake deposits and peat horizons) as well as ice-rich layers (Ice Complex) with huge ice wedges formed during Saalian and Weichselian glacial periods. The samples collected are currently undergoing sedimentological, geochronological, isotope-geochemical, hydrochemical, and palaeo-ecological analyses to give us an idea of the permafrost dynamics of the Siberian Arctic during past climate changes. Our first results show the development of thermokarst depressions in connection with Late Quaternary climate variations. The synthesis of new results together with available data sets will result in a re-evaluation of the climatic and environmental development of lowland areas in Siberia.
