Modern and Late Quaternary Depositional Environment of the St. Anna Trough Area, Northern Kara Sea Edited by Ruediger Stein, Kirsten Fahl, Gennadij I. Ivanov, Michael A. Leviten, and Gennady Tarasov Ber. Polarforsch. 342 (1 999) ISSN 0176 - 5027 Modern and Late Quaternary Depositional Environment of the St. Anna Trough Area, Northern Kara Sea Ruediger Stein Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research Columbusstraße Bremerhaven, Germany e-mail: rstein @awi-bremerhaven.de Kirsten Fahl Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research ColumbusstraßeBremerhaven, Germany e-mail: kfahl @awi-bremerhaven.de Gennadij I. Ivanov All-Russian Research Institute for Geology and Mineral Resources VNIIOKEANGEOLOGIA, St. Petersburg, Russia e-mail: givanov @ sovam.com Michael A. Levitan P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, The Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia e-mail: mlevitan @sedim.msk.ru Gennady Tarasov Murmansk Marine Biological Institute, The Russian Academy of Sciences, Murmansk, Russia e-mail: mmbi @mun.rospac.ru TABLE OF CONTENT Preface The Joint Russian-German Kara Sea Project (1995-1 998) Stein R. History of Russian Research in the Barents - Kara Seas The History of Investigation of Bottom Sediments of the Western Arctic Shelf: the Barents and Kara Seas Kulikov N.N., Lapina N. N., and Ivanov G./. The History of Russian Geological Investigation of Bottom Sediments in The Barents and Kara Seas (with special emphasis On MMBI studies) Tarasov G.A., Matishov G.G.. Samoilovich Yu.G..and Kukina N.A The Modern System The Composition of Aerosols in the Marine Boundary Layer over the St. Anna Trough and the Barents Sea Shevchenko V.P., Vinogradova A.A., Ivanov G.I., Lisitzin A.P., and Serova V.V. Oceanographic Investigations in the St. Anna Trough, Kara Sea 27 Ivanov G./.,Nechsheretov A. V., and Ivanov V. V. Vertical Particle Fluxes in tne St. Anna Trough and in the Eastern 46 Barents Sea in August-September 1994 Shevchenko V. P.. Ivanov G.I., and Zernova V. V. The Distribution of Total Suspended Matter and Particulate Organic 55 Carbon in the St. Anna Trough and in the Barents Sea Shevchenko V.P., Ivanov G.I., Shanin S.S., and ßomankevic E.A. The Composition and Distribution of the Microplankton Community 68 in the St. Anna Trough Area Druzhkov N. V. and Druzhkova E./. Biomass Of Large Foraminifera in the St. Anna Trough Korsun S., Hald, M., Panteleeva, N., and Gerasimova, M. The Lipid Composition of Particulate Matter From the Transitional 93 Zone Between Kara and Laptev Seas Alexandrova O., Shevchenko V., Fahl K. and Stein ß Distribution of Heavy Metals in the Water Column of the St. Anna Trough Ivanov G./.and Andrianova L.F The Granulometrical Structure of Surface Sediments in the St. Anna Trough Area Tarasov G.A., Ivanov G./.,Kukina N.A., and Matishov G.G. Distribution of Light Minerals in Surface Sediments of the St. Anna Trough Kukina N. A., Levitan M. A., and Tarasov G. A. Mineralogy of Heavy Subfraction of Bottom Sediments in the St. Anna Trough Ivanov G.I., Krylov A.A., Ponomarenko T.V. Provenance of the Kara Sea Surface Sediments Based on Heavy Mineral Data Levitan M.A., Ivanov G.I., Bourtman M. V., Ponomarenko T.V., and Krylov A. V. Distribution of Clay Minerals in Surface Sediments in the St. Anna Trough Ivanov G./., Wahsner M., Ponomarenko T. V., Krylov A.A., and Stein R. Physical-mechanical Properties of Surface Sediments and Classification of Sedimentation Environments in the St. Anna Trough Sverfilov A.A. and Ivanov G./. The Late Quaternary System Granulometric Composition of Upper Quaternary Sediments in the St. Anna Trough Andreeva 1. A., Tarasov G. A., Kukina N. A., and Krupskaya V.V. Heavy Minerals in Upper Quaternary Sediments of the Northern and Eastern Kara Sea Levitan, M.A., Andreeva, I.A., Bourtman, M. V., and Smirnova, L.S. Late Quaternary Organic Carbon Records in the St. Anna Trough (Kara Sea) Stein, R. and Knies, J. Preface Stein The ioint Russian-German Kara Sea Proiect f 1995- 1998) THE JOINT RUSSIAN-GERMAN KARA SEA PROJECT (1995-1 998) Stein R. Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research Bremerhaven, Germany The terrigenous sediment supply and its shelf-to-basin transport in the eastern Arctic Ocean is mainly controlled by river discharge, oceanic currents, sea-ice (and iceberg) transport, and down-slope transport; aeolian supply is only of minor importance. Furthermore, most of these mechanisms also influence biological processes in the water column as well as at the sea floor (i.e., surface- water productivity, particle fluxes through the water column, benthic activities at the sea floor, organic carbon export and burial, etc.). In this context, especially the St. Anna Trough is of major interest. The St. Anna Trough is the connection between the Kara Sea shelf and the Open Arctic Ocean and thus (1) an important pathway for the water exchange between the shelf and the Open ocean and (2) an important pathway for the sediments supplied by the major rivers Ob anti Yenisei onto the Kara Sea shelf and transported through the trough towards the central Arctic. Within a joint Russian-German research project funded by the German Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology (BMBF), detailed sedimentological, mineralogical, geochemical and micropaleontological investigations were performed on sediments from the St. Anna Trough area. Major objectives of these studies were (1) the characterization and quantification of the terrigenous sediment input, (2) the identification of source areas and transport pathways of the terrigenous matter, and (3) the reconstruction of the depositional environment and its change through late Quaternary times. This special issue of "Berichte zur Polarforschung" presented results of the joint investigations performed at AWI Bremerhaven, IORAS Moscow, MMBI Murmansk, and VNIIOkeangeologia St. Petersburg. It is divided into three main chapters. Chapter 1 includes two papers dealing with a short review of the history of (mainly Russian) geological research activities in the Barents-Kara-Sea area, beginning from the 16th century. Of Course, these papers could not include all of the numerous investigations performed in this area by the different institutions. Furthermore, the two papers partly strongly emphasize the research activities of the author's home institutions, VNIIOkeangeologia St. Petersburg and MMBI Murmansk, respectively. Within a review of Russian geological research in the Kara Sea, one should niention, however, at least also the work performed at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanolgy Moscow under the guidance of A.P. Lisitzin. During the multidisciplinary Kara Sea Expedition of RV "Dmitry Mendeleev" in 1993 (Lisitzin and Vinogradov, 1995), for example, numerous new data and concepts on sedimentary processes and the ecosystems of the Kara Sea as well as the Ob and Yenisei estuaries were obtained and published (e.g., Lisitzin, 1995, and numerous other papers in the special issue of Oceanology, English Translation, Vol. 34, No. 5, 1995). In 1997, a joint Russian-German expedition Stein The ioint ßussian-GermaKara Sea Project (1995- 1998) was carried out into the area of the Ob and Yenisei estuaries with RV "Akademik Boris Petrov" to study the biological, geochemical and geological processes related to the freshwater, contaminant, and sediment supply by the Siberian rivers Ob and Yenisei and its impact on the environment of the inner Kara Sea (Matthiessen and Stepanets, 1998; Matthiessen et al., 1999). These studies will be extended during a second joint Russian-German Kara Sea Expedition with 'Akademik Boris Petrov" in 1999. Chapter 2 contains papers dealing with modern processes in the St. Anna Trough area, including very different and complex aspects. Oceanographic topics, aerosol input, composition and fluxes of suspended matter, and plankton and benthos data are presented and discussed as well as sediment data on clay minerals, heavy minerals and physical properties. Chapter 3 includes three papers dealing with results from investigations of upper Quaternary sedimentary sequences from the St. Anna Trough. Grain-size data and heavy mineral data as well as organic carbon data are interpreted in terms of changes in terrigenous sediment supply and depositional environment during this time period. I would like to mention that we made an effort to edit the manuscripts by the Russian authors to make them easier to read. l hope that we have not changed the meanings of the original papers. The papers contained in this issue do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editors. Acknowledgements We would like to thank the German Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology (BMBF) for financial Support. References Lisitzin, A.P. and Vinogradov, M.E., 1995. International high-latitude expedition in the Kara Sea (the 49th cruise of the RN Dmitriy Mendeleev). Oceanology, 34 (5): 583-590. Lisitzin, A.P., 1995. The marginal filter of the ocean. Oceanology, 34(5): 671 -682. Matthiessen, J. and Stepanets, O.V. (Eds.), 1998. Scientific Cruise Report of the Kara Sea Expedition of RV "Akademik Boris Petrov" in 1997. Ber. Polarforsch., 266, 102 pp. Matthiessen, J., Stepanets, O.V., Stein, R,, FüttererD.K. and Galimov, E.M. (Eds.), 1999. The Kara Sea Expedition of RV "Akademik Boris Petrov" in 1997: First Results of a joint Russian-German Pilot Study. Ber. Polarforsch., 300, 239 pp. History of Russian Research in the Barents - and Kara Seas Kulikov et al. The historv THE HISTORY OF INVESTIGATION OF BOTTOM SEDIMENTS OF THE WESTERN ARCTIC SHELF: THE BARENTS AND KARA SEAS Kulikov N.N., Lapina N.N., and Ivanov G.1, All-Russia Research Institute for Geology and Mineral Resources of the World Ocean (VNIIOkeangeologia), St. Petersburg, Russia The history of investigations of the Barents and Kara seas can be divided into three main periods: (1) from the 16th to the beginning of the 20th century, (2) from 1921 to 1941, and (3) from 1945 to the present time.