Abstract
Remote mapping of glacier and fluvioglacial landforms has been extensively used globally. It is supported by a range of mid-scale spatial datasets (space imaging and digital terrain models) available to the research community. Such studies are very important for the northern regions of West Siberia since the existence and scale of the Pleistocene glaciation there is still debated. Here, we use digital terrain models, multispectral images, and historical survey materials for the Nadym river basin to reveal sustainable local signs of such landforms as kames, kame (terminal) moraines, moraine and kame hilly areas, linear ridges, ancient discharge valleys, eskers, and wind-scoured basins at the fluvioglacial deposits. The mapping of the identified features showed an abundance and a great variety of glacial and fluvioglacial landforms on most of the area under consideration. Verification against the historical data confirmed the validity of identifying kames, terminal moraines, and kame hilly areas with their geology typical for the region. The results point to the primary contribution of the Pleistocene glaciation to the formation of medium and large geomorphological landforms. The proposed mid-scale geomorphological mapping strategy is also applicable to other regions of the northern part of West Siberia.
Highlights
Assumptions about the signs of large glaciations in the northern part of the West Siberian Plain appeared in the first half of the 20th century. [1,2,3]
We studied the Nadym River basin and all its major inflowing streams Kheigiyaha, Yarudei, Right and Left Khetta rivers) (Fig. 1.) The area is more or less accessible since there are large rivers and roads
A contemporary view is that the north of West Siberia was affected by several glaciations: Zyrian (MIS4), Taz (MIS6) and Samarovo (MIS8.) The low-level areas could have been affected by multiple marine transgressions in Kazantsevo (MIS5) and Karginsky (MIS3) epochs
Summary
Assumptions about the signs of large glaciations in the northern part of the West Siberian Plain appeared in the first half of the 20th century. [1,2,3]. The ideas about the abundance of landforms associated with the Taz (MIS6) and Samarovo (MIS8) glaciations are still valid [6, 7]. Some researchers reject the existence of glaciations and associate the landform formation to the north of the Siberian Uvaly with the Pleistocene marine transgressions only [8]. The geology maps and geotechnical surveys follow these different approaches. Drastically different maps coexist for the same territory [7, 13,14,15,16]. It results in considerable difficulties with geotechnical, construction activities, and applied soil, geobotanical, and geocryological research. Significant international experience has been gained using advanced remote sensing methods, including lidar, radar and multispectral approaches for fluvioglacial landform mapping [17,18,19,20,21,22]
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