Late Quaternary History of the Accumulation Plain North of the Chekanovsky Ridge (Lena Delta, Russia): A Multidisciplinary Approach

Abstract

Permafrost deposits were studied along the Olenyeksky and the Arinsky distributaries in the western Lena delta using a multidisciplinary approach that included sedimentological, mineralogical, stable-isotope, and paleoecological analyses in order to reconstruct the Late Quaternary landscape and environmental history of this Northeast 1 The paper is based on activities, expeditions, and analyses financed by the German Ministries for Science and Technology (BMBF), the Russian Ministry of Science, and the Russian Foundation for Basic under the auspices of the German-Russian cooperative project "System Laptev Sea 2000." The authors thank L. D. Sulerzhitsky for the 14 C dating of bones, and Leibniz-Labor for Age Determination and Isotope Studies (Christian Albrecht University, Kiel) for AMS and conventional 14 C dating. These results would not have been obtained without the help of Russian colleagues from the Lena Delta Reserve, as well as the Tiksi Hydrobase during field work. We also thank the laboratory team from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Potsdam for sample preparation and a great number of chemical analyses. We also thank Helga Henschel and Paul Jasinski for a critical reading and help with improving the English.

Late Quaternary paleoenvironmental records from the western Lena Delta, Arctic Siberia

“…The Ice Complex deposits exposed further east along the Olenyekskaya Channel were formed by proluvial sediments from Chekanovsky Ridge which accumulated on a flat foreland plain in front of the mountain range (Fig. 11B) as already described by Schirrmeister et al (2003), Schwamborn et al (2002c), and Wetterich et al (2008). Various accumulation processes (e.g.…”

“…Samples were previously taken in 1998 and described in former publications (Krbetschek et al, 2002;Schirrmeister et al, 2003;Schwamborn et al, 2002c). These horizons were dated between 36 ± 5 kyr and 20 ± 3 kyr for the Nagym section and 54 ± 9 kyr and 30 ± 5 kyr for the Buor Khaya section (Fig.…”

“…Recently, geological and paleoenvironmental research in the Lena Delta have been continued under Russian-German science collaborations (e.g. Andreev et al, 2004;Krbetschek et al, 2002;Pavlova and Dorozhkina, 2000;Schirrmeister et al, 2003;Schwamborn et al, 2002a,b,c;Wetterich et al, 2008). Schwamborn et al (2002a) provided a comprehensive picture of the delta architecture, its three main geomorphological terraces, and their genesis.…”

Palaeoenvironmental dynamics inferred from late Quaternary permafrost deposits on Kurungnakh Island, Lena Delta, Northeast Siberia, Russia

“…In order to understand the complete radiocarbon geochronology of the studied section we combined our new results with previous radiocarbon data from Schirrmeister et al (2003) (Fig. 6a); the good agreement of these two studied outcrops on Kurungnakh Island is apparent.…”

“…The results of the expeditions in 1998 and 2000 were summarised by Schwamborn et al (2002) and Schirrmeister et al (2003), whereas the results of the work done in 2002 are presented here for the first time. In 2002 we returned to Kurungnakh Island in order to supplement previous studies by sampling the site in more detail and in higher resolution.…”