PAST PERMAFROST

Permafrost belongs, beside the large ice caps, to the widest distributed climatically induced surface phenomenon in polar regions. One of the most stable, oldest and largest permafrost region exists in Arctic Siberia since the Late Pliocene (2 mio. years BP). Various palaeo-environmental records are found in permafrost sequences that are exposed along Arctic coasts of Siberia (e.g. around the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea).

This area of Pleistocene-Holocene (1.8 years mio. years until present) palaeo-environment of the Laptev Sea Region, was well studied during the last 10 years by joint German-Russian projects.

However, the stratigraphic position of climate driven permafrost-onset (approx. 2.5 mio. years) and permafrost dynamics as well as the global and regional interrelations during the Late Cenozoic (65.5 mio. years until today) are mostly unknown yet. The project PAST PERMAFROST seeks to change that.