Yedoma: Late Pleistocene ice-rich syngenetic permafrost of Beringia

• Main Authors: Schirrmeister, Lutz, Froese, Duane, Wetterich, Sebastian, Strauss, Jens, Veremeeva, Aleksandra, Grosse, Guido
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Elsevier 2024
• Subjects: Arctic; Yukon; Ice; permafrost; wedge*; Alaska; Beringia; Siberia
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/58841/; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/58841/1/Yedoma%20Enyclopedia%20of%20Quaternary%20Science%203rd%20ed.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-323-99931-1.00223-3; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.34553ab7-6f2d-4e09-908e-11531b09eaab

Yedoma is a permafrost deposit widely distributed across the Arctic and found exclusively within the unglaciated regions in northern Siberia, Alaska, and the Yukon, which are the core regions of Beringia. Yedoma deposits accumulated during the late Pleistocene Stage and are characterized by their predominantly fine-grained texture and association with syngenetic perma-frost formation. The very high ground ice content is most commonly present as pore ice and wedge ice that formed contemporaneously with sediment deposition. In the last decade, research has transitioned from debates about the origin of the Yedoma deposits towards increasing attention on the large carbon and nitrogen pools in Yedoma, their vulnerability to thaw, and increasing mobilization as the climate has warmed across the Arctic. In addition to classical cryolithological and sedimentological research, new methods such as stable isotope paleoclimate reconstruction and ancient sedimentary DNA studies have been more widely applied to better understand the characteristics of Yedoma deposits and helped emphasize their value as archives of Quaternary climate and paleoecological conditions during Ice Age Beringia.