DOI: 10.7256/2453-8922.2024.1.70079

Abstract: Aufeis is one of the most dangerous natural phenomena. The negative impact of aufeis is determined by the unexpected flooding of the territory and subsequent freezing of water, the formation of ice barriers, the icing of underground structures and communications (mines, tunnels, culverts, and sewer wells), as well as the icing of roads and railways, coastal hydraulic structures, etc. There are cases when explosions of aufeis mounds produce catastrophic disturbances within a few seconds. The aufeis that forms annually in the valley of the Buluus Creek is one of the most famous and studied aufeis of Central Yakutia. The aufeis was sampled from a vertical section. The aufeis is layered, and the thickness of the layers is 3-10 cm. In the upper part of the aufeis, the ice layers are thicker than in the lower. Sampling from the aufeis ice was carried out using a 5.1-cm-diameter steel crown driven by a Bosch electric drill. Measurements of the isotopic composition of oxygen and hydrogen in ice were performed using a Picarro L 2130-i laser isotope analyzer. The isotopic composition of the Buluus ice varies in a narrow range: δ18O values vary from −20.2 to −21.9‰, δ2H values vary from −159.5 to −173.7‰. Generally, the ice is isotopically slightly enriched compared to the surface water of the Ulakhan-Taryn creek, where the δ18O value is −22.18‰ and the δ2H value is −175.1%. Groundwater is isotopically close to the creek water; its isotope composition is also isotopically enriched compared to the ice of the aufeis, with δ18O values varying from −22.17 to −22.25‰ and δ2H values varying from −173.7 to −175.1‰.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-8922.2022.3.38689

Abstract: The object of the study are the cryogenic soils located within the Chara valley. We attributed soils in a post-pyrogenic sparse larch forest on the terrace of the Chara River, to the type of gleyzems (Gleysols), subtypes - permafrost cryogenically ferruginized cryoturbated and permafrost cryogenically ferruginized post-pyrogenic. The field diagnostics of these two soils is ambiguous, since the soil profiles contain some morphological features that make it possible to identify them as podburs (Entic Podzols): a bright red color of the BF horizon, a sandy loam texture, containing less than 19% of clay particles (< 10 µm). Field diagnostics, together with laboratory studies, indicate that the soils in the section on the stone run at the top of the Udokan Ridge belongs to peat-lithozem (Histic Leptosols). Chemical analyses have shown that the described soils are acidic with pH ranges from 4.9 to 5.4 and relatively slightly saline, TDS ranges from 8.1 to 18.9 mg/L. The carbonate alkalinity is also relatively low: 2.4–4.8 mmol(-)/100 g of soil. The sections are strongly differentiated by the content of organic carbon. Permafrost peat-lithozem contains from 9.3 to 37.8%, permafrost cryogenically ferruginized post-pyrogenic gleyzem is much less enriched in it, the content here does not exceed 6.8%, usually being around 0.9%.

DOI: 10.7256/2453-8922.2017.1.22232

Abstract: The subject of the study is the content of trace elements (heavy metals and metalloids) in the Late Pleistocene ice-wedge casts of three yedoma blocks of Northern Yakutia: Kular, Bison and Duvanny Yar. Yedoma deposits of Duvanny Yar are exposed on the right bank in the lower course of the Kolyma River, near the Duvanny riffle, in the Kolyma Lowland. It is drained by the northward flowing Kolyma River, the sixth largest river flowing into the Arctic Ocean. The lowland is bordered by the North Anyuy Range to the east, the Yukagir Plateau to the south, the Alazeya Plateau to the southwest and the Ulakhan-Sis Ridge to the northwest. The Late Pleistocene Bison yedoma complex is located on the right bank of the Kolyma River, in the mouth of the Lakeevskaya Channel 15 km below the Duvanny riffle. Yedoma near the Kular village in the foothills of the Kular range is located on the mild slope of southern aspect in the valley of the Burguaat creek in the form of an inclined slope extending over a slope of more than 1 km. The main reseacrh method is atomic absorption spectroscopy, performed in the V.V. Dokuchaev Soil Science Institute. Samples of ice wedges were sampled in the field in polyethylene bags, melted at a temperature not higher than 15 °C and poured into chemically inert plastic bottles. The main conclusions of the study are as follows: a) in the late Pleistocene ice-wedge casts of the Bison and Duvanny Yar sections, lithophile elements (Mn, Sr) are significantly distinguished in comparison with the Kular section; b) the content of Sr in the ice of the Bison section is below the world’s average for surface water; c) Mn and Fe, highly mobile in gley reducting medium, are represented in the ice of the Duvanny Yar and Bison sections in much larger quantities than in the Kular section; it can be connected with different redox conditions during the formation of ice wedges. Probably in Kular the conditions were oxidative (for a long time) or more alkaline than in other sections, and in Duvanny Yar and Bison – mostly gley reducing and acid.