Schirrmiester Abstracts

The Yedoma Suite of Northeast Siberia

Geology Dept. Weekly Seminar

Friday, March 11th at 3:30 pm in 201 Reichardt Building, UAF

The Yedoma Suite - an outstanding ice-rich permafrost sequence of 10 to 60 m thickness containing huge ice wedges occurs in lowlands of northeast Siberia. Because of high contents of fossil remains ranging from pollen grains to mammoth bones and the unknown depositional origin, these deposits had already attracted scientific interest early in the 19^th century. Corresponding permafrost sequences are exposed along seacoasts and river banks and play an important role as archive for understanding the Late Pleistocene environmental dynamics in Western Beringia. I will present details of the key site Mamontovy Khayata (Bykovsky Peninsula, Laptev Sea) which is one of the best studied sequences of the Yedoma Suite. Moreover, I will present and discuss new data on the organic carbon pool stored in such permafrost deposits in Siberia.