Reconstruction of ice complex remnants on the eastern Siberian arctic shelf

Based on the analysis of seafloor topography together with historical, geological and palaeogeographical data obtained from published and archived sources, the position of former Ice Complex (IC) islands has been reconstructed. Within the Laptev Sea shelf and in the western part of the East Siberian Sea shelf, most of these islands have been destroyed by coastal thermal erosion and thermal abrasion during the last thousand years or so. The IC islands were the remnants of the ice‐rich syncryogenic freshwater terrestrial deposits (so called IC), which covered most of the arctic coastal plains and the emerged arctic shelf during the Late Pleistocene. At the present time, sandbanks exist at the places of former IC islands. These sandbanks are the subject of intense seafloor thermal abrasion. The approximate rates of seafloor thermal abrasion and the time of complete disappearance of these islands during the last thousand years have been estimated. The rate is different for different islands and for different time intervals. The most common values are between 0.02 and 0.3 m/year. Schematic maps of the former IC islands within the Laptev Sea and western part of the East Siberian Sea shelves have been compiled. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.