Last and current interglacial environments of Kola Peninsula, as reflected in the sediment record of Lake Imandra

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Martin Melles
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2017 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 323638479

The project proposed here constitutes a contribution to the bilateral programme "DFG-SPSU 2016" between the St. Petersburg State University, Russia, and the DFG. It aims at investigating the climatic and environmental history of the Kola Peninsula, Russia, during Late Quaternary times, based upon the composition of the sediment record in Lake Imandra. With 876 km2 Imandra is the largest lake in the European Arctic. It has a maximum water depth of 70 m and is located on the western Kola Peninsula, close to the Finnish border, in an elongated deep tectonic depression. Since the depression is oriented perpendicular to the main flow direction of the Pleistocene ice masses, it is expected that sediments deposited in the depression prior to the last glaciation have not entirely become eroded or disturbed. These sediments could function as a unique, partly continuous archive for the reconstruction of the preglacial climatic and environmental history, in an area, in which the present understanding of the Quaternary geology is widely restricted to the time following the Last Glacial Maximum. For this purpose, (i) a seismic survey shall be carried out on Lake Imandra, in order to determine its sediment thickness and architecture, (ii) sediment cores of up to 30 m length shall be taken from the lake at sites identified by the seismic survey, using an improved percussion piston corer, (iii) the cores shall consistently be investigated for stratigraphy, sedimentology, and chemical and biological composition, and (iv) from the proxies measured, qualitative and quantitative reconstructions of the climatic and environmental history in the lake and its vicinity shall be derived. The field and analytical work, as well as the interpretation and publication of the results, shall be made jointly with colleagues from the St. Petersburg State University, building on a continuous collaboration since the 1990s. This project could be carried out with limited costs for field logistics, because the seismic and coring techniques of the University of Cologne, which are requested for the fieldwork, will be available in Russia at no cost following fieldwork for another research project funded by the German and Russian Research Ministries.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Russia
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Grigoriy Fedorov