LATE QUATERNARY DUNE FORMATIONS (D’OLKUMINSKAYA SERIES) IN CENTRAL YAKUTIA (PART 1)
A.A. Galanin, M.R. Pavlova, I.V. Klimova
Melnikov Permafrost Institute, SB RAS, 36, Merzlotnaya str., Yakutsk, 677010, Russia; agalanin@gmail.com
The data inferred from a new key section in the Vilyuy river basin allowed us to examine the structural-faces features and absolute age of cross-layered sandy-loam sediments of the D’olkuminskaya series distributed in Central Yakutia in a wide hypsometric range. These deposits had formed in the period from the latest Kargin thermochron to the beginning of the Holocene (between 35 ka and 12–10 ka BP) under the overwhelming conditions of severe desiccation and desertification of the area. During the Boreal optimum of the Holocene, the soil-vegetation cover had largely provided for the stabilization of dune covers. The formation of the contemporary moving-dune massifs took place not more than one thousand years ago and had been directly linked with the climatic events of the Little Ice Age.
Dunes, eolian formations, grain size distribution, dunes mineralogy, absolute age, palynology, permafrost, D’olkuminskaya series, Pleistocene, Quaternary period