PLEISTOCENE ICE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE VAVILOV ICE CAP, SEVERNAYA-ZEMLYA, RUSSIAN ARCTIC

The Vavilov ice cap was perforated in 1988 by a drilling which reached the underlying frozen sediments. In contrast to the overlying glacier ice, the basal ice is composed of different ice layers with a variabl e debris load. The stable-isotope composition of these layers shows de lta values much lower than everywhere else in the core or in the Vavil ov ice cap. This is most probably the signature of a remnant of Pleist ocene ice which, for the first time, is shown to occur in the Russian Arctic.