This award supports a study of paleobotanical material in Holocene peat from northeastern Siberia. At present, there is little information about past climatic and environmental conditions in this part of Russia. This work focuses on samples from the lower Kolyma River terrace deposits, called Yedoma deposits, which have been dissected by thermokarst activity and river erosion. The deposits consist of mid to late Pleistocene silt layers capped in depressions by Holocene peat. The goal is to test the utility of these deposits for yielding proxy records of paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental conditions. If successful this work will yield important information on the environmental history of a climatically sensitive region of the Russian northeast. This work constitutes the paleobotanical analyses of a field program funded by the National Geographic Society. This work will include analysis of pollen and spores in addition to the analysis of fungal and algal remains. This information will be a key component in reconstructing the late Pleistocene and Holocene depositional and environmental conditions of this region. In addition, this work has substantial potential for expanding understanding of a coupled high-latitude vegetation-landscape-climate system.
