The Northern Pleistocene of Russia

Book excerpt: This collection of papers devoted to the Ice Age of northern Russia provides illustrated descriptions of landforms and sediments revealing former ice sheets of the arctic shelf that inundated northern Russia. It shows that a peculiar Siberian type of inland glaciation is inferred from preserved Ice Age features. This type of glacial environment implies arrested landscape evolution in continental climates with fossil glacial ice surviving within the conservative permafrost. The contributions here delve into the problem of the size and age of the last glaciation intensely discussed in the international literature. This is of broad interest because its solution is paramount for global climatic models and the reconstruction of Circum-Arctic paleoenvironments. It is also essential for understanding natural conditions of early human migration into the Arctic. Another point of interest is the book’s discussion of the profound impact of reconstructed glaciers on the tectonic structure and distribution of petroleum reserves.