Lacustrine Systems of northern Yakutia

Funding

Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research

Russian Partners

• Dr. Dmitry Bolshianov & Polina Wachrameeva, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia
• Prof. Dr. Dmitry A. Subetto, Herzen State University, Department of Physical Geography, St. Petersburg, Russia
• Dr. Luidmilla Petstryakova, Yakutsk State University, Department of Biology and Geography Yakutsk, Russia

Background

Palaeolimnological and palaeoecological research on lake sediments of East Siberia give insight into the development of climate and periglacial environments since the last ice age. Lake sediment records store palaeoenvironmental signals at high temporal resolution that are deciphered through sedimentological, geochemical and micropalaeontological approaches. They are used for the reconstruction of climate-driven changes in water temperature, hydrological status, lake-level fluctuations, vegetation dynamics, and thermokarst dynamics.   

In summer 2010, a limnogeological field campaign was conducted at Lake Kyutyunda and Lake El'gene Kyuel in northern Yakutia. Several up to 8 m long sediment cores were retrieved. The field campaign was part of a longer limnogeological research programme in the periglacial regions of eastern Siberia. Lake studies concentrate on a north-south transect through Yakutia from the Lena Delta to Yakutsk and in eastern direction across the Verkhoyansk Mountains to Kamchatka. The transects cross the gradients both from polar to subpolar settings and from extreme continentality to maritime influences. The study is included in the AWI-PACES research focus T3WP1 „Past Polar Climate and Inter-Hemispheric Coupling“.