Morphometry and Spatial Distribution of Lakes in the Lena Delta, NE Siberia (Remote Sensing and GIS Analyses)

• Main Authors: Morgenstern, Anne, Grosse, Guido, Schirrmeister, Lutz, Asche, H.
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2005
• Subjects: Arctic; Laptev Sea; laptev; lena delta; lena river; permafrost; Thermokarst; Siberia
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/13497/; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.23878

The Lena Delta in the Laptev Sea in northern Siberia is the largest delta in the Arctic covering an area of about 32.000 km². It is situated in the zone of continuous permafrost, but is also characterized by widespread thermokarst. For many years the interest of Russian and lately also German scientists (e.g. within the framework of the German-Russian research project System Laptev Sea 2000 supported by the BMBF) has been focused on the investigation of different problems concerning biology and geosciences in this area, which serves as an interface between the Siberian mainland and the Laptev Sea. The Lena Delta can be clearly divided into an active part in the East and a passive one in the West. Furthermore, a classification is made into three main terraces, which were formed during different stages since the late Pleistocene. The first and second terraces (early to late Pleistocene) were built by fluvial action of the Lena River. The third terrace consists of relicts of a late Pleistocene accumulation plain, which was enclosed by Holocene delta progression. In addition to about 800 channels, numerous lakes occur in the Lena Delta as characteristic landforms. These are not only relevant for the reconstruction of the paleoenvironment in this area, but also for todays delta geomorphology and ecology. The lakes are obviously of different genesis, e.g. thermokarst or abandoned channel lakes, which is important for balancing methane emissions in the Lena Delta as different lake types contribute different amounts of methane to the overall methane budget. Many of them have a clear orientation of their major axes tending in the same direction, most obvious on the second terrace. The phenomenon of oriented lakes described for many arctic coastal plains has not been fully explained yet despite intense research during the past decades. Different theories on the cause of orientation have been proposed, in most of which wind is seen as the main driving force. In order to generally quantify different lake types, to ...