Holocene glacial landscapes of the Russian Arctic and the Urals

There is a paucity of glacial geologic and palaeoclimatic evidence for the reconstruction of Holocene glacier and climate history in the Polar Urals (PU), Novaya Zemlya (NZ) and Franz Josef Land (FJL). Moreover, the three regions are very different in terms of climate and glacial morphology. For these regions, only very preliminary conclusions on Holocene glacier fluctuations are available. Between approximately 11.0 cal ka BP and 5 cal ka BP, the glaciers in the FJL were restricted in extent and remained smaller than now or close to their present-day dimensions. An advance of Sedov Glacier (FJL) occurred at 3.4 cal ka BP. Numerous advances at the end of the CE 1st millennium and over the CE 2nd millennium are identified in the FJL. The most prominent are clustered at 1 cal ka BP as well as at CE c. 1400 and c. 1600. The data in the NZ are even more limited. The climate in NZ in the Early and Middle Holocene was unfavourable for the glaciers, but there are no direct evidence of glacier dimensions at that time. Moreover, the most detailed reconstructions of Shokal’ski Glacier (Barents Sea) and Serp-i-Molot Glacier (Kara Sea) variations (NZ) show different patterns over the second half of the Holocene. Glacier advances at the Barents Sea coast (NZ) are reconstructed at CE c. 1400 and in CE 19th century. In the PU, the first half of the Holocene was also much warmer than at present as in NZ and FJL, so the Urals was most probably free of glaciers. After a short strong cooling at c. 6 cal ka BP, warm conditions returned in PU and lasted until 4.0–3.5 cal ka BP. Then, a cooling trend was dominating until very recent decades. Only lichenometry dates of the Late Holocene moraines of glaciers in the PU are available. The first 10Be dates of the Late Pleistocene Maximum moraines show that the later advances in the PU did not exceed 1 km. In all three regions, the glaciers are retreating at least since 1950s as recorded by airborne and space images.