The Southeastern White Sea Coast in the Late Pleistocene

We present a composite section of the Upper Quaternary sediment beds and preliminary reconstructions of the Late Pleistocene sedimentation environments in the southeastern White Sea Region, obtained as a result of field and analytical research on the coast of the Kuloi Plateau, generalization of published evidence and geological survey reports, together with correlation of existing continental and marine palaeoarchives. The studies included lithostratigraphic descriptions of sediment sections, linking lithological boundaries to the absolute heights, diatom and malacofaunistic analyses, and OSL dating of deposits. Until now, many questions of the Late Pleistocene history of the region remained open: the age and amplitude of marine transgressions, the boundary and the very fact of the penetration of the Early Valdai glaciation into the territory of the Kuloi Plateau, the eastern boundary of the last glaciation and the distribution of glacial, glaciofluvial, glaciomarine and marine deposits accumulated during the period of its degradation. On the basis of the obtained data, preliminary conclusions were made concerning the relationship between glacial and marine paleoenvironments in the southeastern White Sea Region in the Late Quaternary. Apparently, marine sedimentation environments prevailed during almost the entire Late Pleistocene (except for MIS 2). The multiplicity of the local early Valdai glaciations is still doubtful and does not correspond to the obtained lithological and geochronometric data. The most complete Late Quaternary sediment sequences are exposed in the outcrops on Zimnii Coast. On Abramovskii Coast, the number of sediment beds decreases, here deposits of the maximum stage of the last glaciation overlie clays and sands of the Mezen’ transgression. It can be assumed that Abramovskii Coast, in contrast to Zimnii Coast, undergoes less amplitude and rates of glacioisostatic uplift.

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