Sediment, ground ice, geochronological and paleoecological data from polygon cores in the Siberian Arctic

• Main Authors: Schirrmeister, Lutz, Bobrov, Anatoly A, Raschke, Elena, Wetterich, Sebastian
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2018
• Subjects: AWI_PerDyn; Permafrost Research (Periglacial Dynamics) @ AWI; Arctic; Antarctic; Svalbard; Kolyma; Indigirka; Pokhodsk; Antarc*; Antarctic and Alpine Research; Berichte zur Polar- und Meeresforschung; Ice; Magnetic susceptibility; permafrost; Reports on Polar and Marine Research; Tundra; wedge*; Siberia
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.887933; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.887933

During the expedition Kytalyk and Pokhodsk 2012 several cores in the polygonal tundra were drilled. Sediment data (gravimetric ice content, grain-size parameters, mass specific magnetic susceptibility, TC, TOC, TN, TOC/TN, d13C), ground ice data (dD, d18O, d excess) and paleoecological data (pollen, plant macrofossils, tecamoebae) are presented in these data sets. The data are related to the expeditions report "Studies of Polygons in Siberia and Svalbard" published in Reports on Polar and Marine Research 267 by Lutz Schirrmeister, Liudmila Pestryakova, Andrea Schneider and Sebastian Wetterich. Furthermore these data are related to the paper "Late Holocene ice-wedge polygon dynamics in northeastern Siberian coastal lowlands" still under review by the journal Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research. Ice-wedge polygons are common features of northeastern Siberian lowland periglacial tundra landscapes. To deduce the formation and alternation of ice-wedge polygons in the Kolyma Delta and in the Indigirka Lowland, we studied shallow cores, up to 1.3 m deep, from polygon center and rim locations. The formation of well-developed low-center polygons with elevated rims and wet centers is shown by the beginning of peat accumulation, increased organic matter contents and changes in vegetation cover from Poaceae-, Alnus-, and Betula-dominated pollen spectra to dominating Cyperaceae and Botryoccocus presence, and Carex and Drepanocladus revolvens macro-fossils. Tecamoebae data support such a change from wetland to open-water conditions in polygon centers by changes from dominating eurybiontic and sphagnobiontic to hydrobiontic species assemblages. The peat accumulation indicates low-center polygon formation and started between 2380 ± 30 and 1676 ± 32 years before present (BP) in the Kolyma Delta. We recorded an opposite change from open-water to wetland conditions due to rim degradation and consecutive high-center polygon formation in the Indigirka Lowland between 2144 ± 33 and 1632 ± 32 yrs BP. The late Holocene records of ...