Paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic records from permafrost deposits in the Arctic region of Northern Siberia

lee Complexes, extremely ice-rich permafrost deposits with large ice wedges, are widely distributed in the Arctic region of northeast Siberia. They present excellent archives for the reconstruction of Late Quaternary paleoenvironmental conditions in non-glaciated areas. In 1998, 1999, and 2000 Russian and German scientists worked together on the Bykovsky Peninsula southeast of the Lena Delta in order to investigate the Ice Complex and its associated sediments. Intensive cryolithological and sedimentological studies, Radiocarbon age determinations, paleobotanical studies, micropaleontological investigations, studies of mammal and insect fossils, and stable isotope analyses of ground ice were performed. Radiocarbon data have been obtained from the entire exposed sequence covering approximately the last 60,000 years. The results indicate that compared with modern time the investigated Ice Complex sequence was formed during two cooler and more and stages of the Late Pleistocene with relatively uniform environmental conditions, separated by a stage with environmental variations and more intensive soil formation caused by climate amelioration. The Late Pleistocene environmental changes were not as strong as those occurring during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition where a sharp break is evident. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.