THE LATE PLEISTOCENE GLACIATION IN THE NORTHERN CHUKCHI-PENINSULA

A study of landform features in the Vankarem Lowland, northern Chukhui Peninsula, has revealed a pattern of repetitive alpine and piedmont g lacial advances during the late Quaternary. A succession of terminal m oraines, produced by alpine and piedmont glaciers, indicates that thin piedmont glaciers extended as much as 80 km from the mountain summits . Glacial deposits and landforms in the western Vankarem Lowland are o verlain by Sartanian and Kaginian (Middle Wisconsinan/Weichselian) org anic-bearing sediments. Organic sediments interstratified with the gla cial deposits are associated with the Zyryanian (Early Wisconsinan/Wei chselian), and thus indicate that the earlier glaciation was more exte nsive than the subsequent Sartanian event. Alpine and adjacent piedmon t areas were glaciated during the Sartanian (Late Wisconsinan/Weichsel ian), despite the postulated dry Sartanian climate and the distance se parating the Vankarem Lowland from the receded Chukhui Sea littoral. G lacial events in the Chukhui Peninsula can be correlated to those thro ughout Yakutia, the Brooks Range of Alaska, and the Mackenzie Valley, with the Sartanian event and its equivalents reaching their maxima, ca . 30,000 BP. (C) 1997 INQUA/Elsevier Science Ltd.