This article presents a review of the current data on the level of paleolimnological knowledge about lakes in the Russian part of the northern Eurasia. The results of investigation of the northwestern European part of Russia as the best paleolimnologically studied sector of the Russian north is presented in detail. The conditions of lacustrine sedimentation at the boundary between the Late Pleistocene and Holocene and the role of different external factors in formation of their chemical composition, including active volcanic activity and possible large meteorite impacts, are also discussed. The results of major paleoclimatic and paleoecological reconstructions in northern Siberia are presented. Particular attention is given to the databases of abiotic and biotic parameters of lake ecosystems as an important basis for quantitative reconstructions of climatic and ecological changes in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. Keywords: paleolimnology, lakes, bottom sediments, northern

We investigated chironomid fauna of surface sediments and a short sediment core (Bol’shoy Kharbey Lake) from Pechora river basin, Northern Russia. Twenty three investigated lakes have thermokarst, glacial or floodplain origin and are characterised by low mineralization, mostly hydrocarbon-calcium type of water and low concentration of nutrients. Most of the lakes have circumneutral pH around ≤7 and only two lakes are slightly more acidic with pH ≤ 6. Ninety six chironomid taxa were identified in the surface sediments. Distribution of chironomids in the studied region is driven by continentality, mean T_July and рН. Chironomid communities from the core of the B. Kharbei Lake demonstrate the highest similarity with the fauna of the deeper lakes of the glacial origin. The glacial lakes have the highest indices of continentality and the lowest winter temperatures within the investigated data set. The chironomid fauna of the glacial lakes is composed of the profundal, oligotrophic and cold-stenotherm taxa. The fauna of the floodplain and thermokarst lakes is more closely related to T_July and is composed of littoral and phytophilic taxa of meso–or eutrophic waters and moderate temperature conditions. The fauna of the acidic thermokarst lakes considerably differs from the other lakes. Chironomid communities here are represented by tolerant to acidification taxa, and by the typically littoral and shallow water acid-tolerant taxa that apparently also can tolerate acidification. Studied sediment record covers ca last 200 years. The reconstructed T_July during the entire period remain slightly below the modern temperatures. From 1970 reconstructed T_July shows steady increase to the modern level. The reconstructed water depths (WDs) of the lake are higher than today till 1980. The highest WDs are reconstructed for ca 1970. After that the WDs gradually decrease to the modern level. Changes of the WDs are most probably related to changes in the precipitation rate.

Rapidly changing climate in the Northern Hemisphere and associated socio-economic impacts require reliable understanding of lake systems as important freshwater resources and sensitive sentinels of environmental change. To better understand time-series data in lake sediment cores, it is necessary to gain information on within-lake spatial variabilities of environmental indicator data. Therefore, we retrieved a set of 38 samples from the sediment surface along spatial habitat gradients in the boreal, deep, and yet pristine Lake Bolshoe Toko in southern Yakutia, Russia. Our methods comprise laboratory analyses of the sediments for multiple proxy parameters, including diatom and chironomid taxonomy, oxygen isotopes from diatom silica, grain-size distributions, elemental compositions (XRF), organic carbon content, and mineralogy (XRD). We analysed the lake water for cations, anions, and isotopes. Our results show that the diatom assemblages are strongly influenced by water depth and dominated by planktonic species, i.e. Pliocaenicus bolshetokoensis. Species richness and diversity are higher in the northern part of the lake basin, associated with the availability of benthic, i.e. periphytic, niches in shallower waters. δ¹⁸O_diatom values are higher in the deeper south-western part of the lake, probably related to water temperature differences. The highest amount of the chironomid taxa underrepresented in the training set used for palaeoclimate inference was found close to the Utuk River and at southern littoral and profundal sites. Abiotic sediment components are not symmetrically distributed in the lake basin, but vary along restricted areas of differential environmental forcing. Grain size and organic matter are mainly controlled by both river input and water depth. Mineral (XRD) data distributions are influenced by the methamorphic lithology of the Stanovoy mountain range, while elements (XRF) are intermingled due to catchment and diagenetic differences. We conclude that the lake represents a valuable archive for multiproxy environmental reconstruction based on diatoms (including oxygen isotopes), chironomids, and sediment–geochemical parameters. Our analyses suggest multiple coring locations preferably at intermediate depth in the northern basin and the deep part in the central basin, to account for representative bioindicator distributions and higher temporal resolution, respectively.

Concentration and distribution of trace elements across the sequence of the Late Pleistocene sediments from the lake Medvedevskoye suggest the addition of materials other than those from a common...

A sediment core from Khatanga-12 Lake (Taimyr Peninsula, Krasnoyarsk krai) has been studied. The 131.5-cm-long core covers ca. 7100 years of sedimentation. Chironomid analysis, a qualitative reconstruction of the paleoenvironment in the region, and a quantitative reconstruction of variations of the mean July air temperature and in the water depth of the lake have been performed using Northern Russia chironomid-inferred mean July temperature models (Nazarova et al., 2008, 2011, 2015). Khatanga-12 Lake was formed during the Middle Holocene warming as a result of thermokarst processes. The development of the lake ecosystem at different stages of its development was influenced by climatic and cryolithogenic factors. The Middle Holocene warming, which occurred around 7100–6250 cal. years BP, activated thermokarst processes and resulted in the formation of the lake basin. Later, between 6250 and 4500 cal. years BP, a period of cooling took place, as is proved by chironomid analysis. The bottom sediments of the lake during this period were formed by erosion processes on the lake shores. The reconstructed conditions were close to the modern after 2500 cal. years BP.