Chapter 28 - Glacial History of the Taymyr Peninsula and the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago, Arctic Russia

Abstract

Maximum glaciation in this region, when even the central Arctic Ocean was glaciated, took place during the late Saalian stage (ca. 140 ka BP, MIS 6). Glaci-isostatically depressed land areas were thereafter, during the Eemian/Kazanzevo (MIS 5e) interglacial, inundated by the marine ‘Boreal Transgression’. During the following Weichselian period, (MIS 5d-2) three glaciations, all with their culminating centres on the Kara Sea shelf, expanded over Taymyr. The oldest, peaking ca. 100 ka BP, reached south of the Byrranga Mountains, but the two younger stages (around 65 ka BP, and at the ‘Last Glacial Maximum’ (LGM) ca. 18 ka BP) reached only to the North Taymyr ice-marginal zone, near the peninsulas west coast. Glaciers from the ice-covered Severnaya Zemlya islands contributed to the Kara Sea centred ice sheets during the earlier periods, but not so during the LGM, when this archipelago was largely ice free.