POLLEN AND ISOTOPE INVESTIGATIONS OF AN I CE CORE FROM VAVILOV ICE CAP, OCTOBER-REVOLUTION ISLAND, SEVERNAYA-ZEMLYA ARCHIPELAGO, RUSSIA

The Vavilov Ice Cap (79 degrees 27'N, 95 degrees 21'E) was cored durin g February and March of 1988. The corer passed through 457.18m of glac ier ice, 2.15 m of moraine-containing ice, and 2.28 m of underlying ro cks. Structural-stratigraphical and isotope analysis show the glacier ice is of Holocene in age; the ice layer covered by frozen deposits is Pleistocene glacier ice; and the ground (ice wedge?) ice from underly ing sediments was formed during the Last Interglacial. Palynological s tudies of this core, carried out for the first time in the Russian Arc tic demonstrate that the pollen spectra have a unique pattern. It redu ces the possibility of correlation between the Vavilov Ice Cape spectr a and pollen spectra from other surficial deposits, because the ice re tains pollen and spores brought from enormous distances. Only the uppe r 65 m of the core is easily dated, to the last millennium, by the pre sence of cereals, Plantago lanceolata, Centaurea cyanus, Cannabis poll en. That is in good agreement with the model of age distribution based upon depth. The presence of considerable amounts of Tilia cordifolia pollen, a West-European species in the upper layers suggests that summ er air masses have been dominantly from the southwest during the last 500 years. The pollen data do not contradict the conclusion the Vavilo v ice core is composed of a section of Holocene ice, moraine-containin g ice representing the Pleistocene episode, and a ground ice formed du ring an earlier warm period (Last Interglacial?).