Age determination of sediments from Pechora basin, Arctic Russia

DOI

The Vastiansky Kon' is the largest exposure of Quaternary deposits in the Pechora lowland, northern Russia. Morphologically the site belongs to the so-called Markhida Moraine; a complex, east-west trending zone of ice-marginal landforms deposited by the Kara Sea Ice Sheet during the last glaciation. The site exhibits a succession of sediments more than 100 m thick that, according to previous studies, covers the interval from the end of the Elsterian to the beginning of the Holocene. Unfortunately both the strong glaciotectonic deformation of the sedimentary succession and few absolute dates have made the chronological interpretation of the section difficult. The present paper reviews previous studies of the site published in Russian, and presents the results of a reinvestigation focusing on the post-Eemian stratigraphy. A marine Eemian clay more than 8 m thick is overlain erosionally by 20 m of fluvial deposits of Late Eemain or Early Weichselian age. The fluvial succession is overlain by a till and a marine clay, which, according to one interpretation, may represent an Early or Middle Weichselian advance of the Kara Ice Sheet followed by a transgression. The clay shows a transition into 15 m of estuarine and fluvial sediments overlain by more than 12 m of tundra-floodplain deposits. The whole succession has been upthrusted glaciotectonically by the last ice advance, which deposited a more than 12 m thick till on top of the section. Based on a number of subtill radiocarbon age-estimates from the site, in the range 25-32 ka BP, the youngest ice advance is considered to be of late Weichselian age, although a Middle Weichselian age cannot be excluded.

Supplement to: Tveranger, Jan; Astakhov, Valery I; Mangerud, Jan; Svendsen, John Inge (1998): Signature of the last shelf-centered glaciation at a key section in the Pechora basin, Arctic Russia. Journal of Quaternary Science, 13(3), 189-203

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.707934
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1417(199805/06)13:3<189::AID-JQS364>3.0.CO
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.707934
Provenance
Creator Tveranger, Jan ORCID logo; Astakhov, Valery I ORCID logo; Mangerud, Jan ORCID logo; Svendsen, John Inge
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 1998
Funding Reference Fourth Framework Programme https://doi.org/10.13039/100011105 Crossref Funder ID MAS3980185 https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/MAS3980185 Quaternary Environment of the Eurasian North
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Resource Type Supplementary Publication Series of Datasets; Collection
Format application/zip
Size 3 datasets
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (52.250 LON, 67.250 LAT)