NEW RESULTS OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDIES OF MAJOR PLEISTOCENE CLIMATIC EVENTS: GLACIATIONS, FORMATION OF ICE-DAMMED LAKES AND THEIR CATACLYSMIC DRAINING IN ALTAI (MOUNTAINS OF SOUTHERN SIBERIA)

Abstract

Application of geological geomorphological and geochronological (14C, OSL) methods allowed to establish that the bordering mountains of the Chuya basin (Russian Altai) were affected by glaciation already in the Middle Pleistocene – about 160–180 ka ago (MIS 6). However, the maximal ice-dammed lake with the highest (up to 2100 m a.s.l.) strandlines both in the Chuya and Kurai basins existed later than 90–80 ka ago, in the Late Pleistocene. This chronological benchmark limits the influence of the cataclysmic outburst floods from the largest ice-dammed lakes on the accumulation of the Inya formation in the Chuya and Katun river valleys. It is confirmed that a large ice-dammed lake existed and had a water level of at least 1730 m a.s.l. in MIS 2 in the Kurai basin. It was drained no later than 16 ka ago. Synchronously (about 17–16 ka ago) the accumulation of diluvial-lacustrine cyclites began in the Inya mouth. The Saldzhar formation had been depositing as a result of not only flood events, but also gradual hydrological processes in the Katun river valley between the mouths of the Chuya and Sema rivers during the entire MIS 2. It is necessary to revise the concept adopted by SibRISC in 2018. This concept assumes i) absence of ice-dammed lakes in intermountain basins of the Russian Altai in MIS 2 and ii) accumulation of the Inya and Saldzhar formations deposited by glacial megafloods in the valleys of the Chuya and Katun rivers before 90 ka ago.