Gold Mining as key to Eastern Beringia - Impressions from the AWI Expedition 2023 to the Klondike Goldfields

In the summer of 2023, three colleagues from the AWI Research Unit Potsdam worked together with two Canadian colleagues from the University of Toronto on permafrost outcrops in the vicinity of Dawson City. Dawson City is located in western Canada in the Yukon Territory near the Alaskan border at the mouth of the Klondike River into the Yukon and is known for its gold mining. During the Klondike Gold Rush at the end of the 19th century, tens of thousands of gold miners had spent several years in the Klondike Goldfields digging shafts in the permafrost with fires during the winter, driving tunnels horizontally and bringing the gold-bearing gravels to the surface. In the early 20th century through the 1960s, gold was washed out on a large scale in the main valleys with huge dredges, massively altering the landscape. Today, dozens of smaller and larger gold mines extract the gold placers and further alter the landscape. Huge sand and gravel mountains and long gravel walls with little vegetation cover can still be found on the valley floors today. The very continental climate in the study area leads to very cold winters (up to -50°C) and very warm summers. With temperatures up to 30°C and a very low mosquito density, we were able to sample the permafrost partly in T-shirts. Another consequence of the dry heat with only a few thundershowers were over 100 forest fires in the region, which, in addition to frequent smoke in Dawson City and the surrounding area, also led to evacuations of towns in the wider area and road closures. In the secondary valleys, the ice-rich permafrost overlying gold-bearing gravels is still being thawed with water cannons and removed with excavators. This created short-term opportunities for us to examine fresh permafrost walls. Our group examined and sampled both the long and wide ice wedges and the surrounding ice-rich sediment. Studies of ice chemistry and ice isotopy are planned. Different age determination methods will be carried out on the sediments and the ice. The sediments will be analyzed for grain size, carbon and nitrogen contents, and biomarkers, among other things, and will be available for paleoecological studies to reconstruct environmental conditions before, during, and after the last ice age. We would like to give you an impression of this expedition with some pictures and background information

Northeast Siberian ice wedges confirm Arctic winter warming over the past two millennia

Arctic climate has experienced major changes over the past millennia that are not fully understood in terms of their controls and seasonality. Stable-data from ice wedges in permafrost provide unique information on past winter climate. Recently, an ice-wedge record from the Lena River Delta suggested for the first time that Siberian winter temperatures increased throughout the Holocene, contradicting most other Arctic paleoclimate reconstructions which are likely biased towards the summer. However, the representativeness of this single record and the spatial extent of its reconstructed winter warming signal is unclear. Here, we present a new winter temperature record based on paired stable oxygen (δ18O) and radiocarbon age data spanning the last two millennia from the Oyogos Yar coast in northeast Siberia. The record confirms the long-term winter warming signal as well as the unprecedented temperature rise in recent decades. This confirmation demonstrates that winter warming over the last millennia is a coherent feature in the northeastern Siberian Arctic, supporting the hypothesis of an insolation-driven seasonal Holocene temperature evolution followed by a strong warming likely related to anthropogenic forcing

10Be in the Akademii Nauk ice core – first results for CE 1590-1950 and implications for future chronology validation

Temporal variations of the radionuclide 10Be are broadly synchronous across the globe and thus provide a powerful tool to synchronize ice core chronologies from different locations. We compared the 10Be record of the Akademii Nauk (AN) ice core (Russian Arctic) for the time period CE 1590–1950 to the 10Be records of two well-dated Greenland ice cores (Dye3 and NGRIP). A high correlation (r = 0.59) was found between the AN and Dye3 records whereas the correlation with NGRIP was distinctly lower (r = 0.45). Sources of deviations may include local fluctuations in the deposition of 10Be due to changes in the precipitation patterns, and artefacts due to the core-sampling strategy. In general, the existing age model was validated, confirming the AN ice core to be a unique and well-dated source of palaeoclimate parameters for the Russian Arctic. We further used numerical simulations to test the influence of the core-sampling strategy on the results and derived an optimized sampling strategy for the deeper parts of the ice core

Magnetic excitations and amplitude fluctuations in insulating cuprates

We present results from light scattering experiments on three insulating antiferromagnetic cuprates, YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.05}$, Bi$_2$Sr$_2$YCu$_2$O$_{8+\delta}$, and La$_2$CuO$_4$ as a function of polarization and excitation energy {using samples of the latest generation. From the raw data we derive symmetry-resolved spectra.} The spectral shape in $B_{1g}$ symmetry is found to be nearly universal and independent of the excitation energy. The spectra agree quantitatively with predictions by field theory [\onlinecite{Weidinger:2015}] facilitating the precise extraction of the Heisenberg coupling $J$. {In addition, the asymmetric line shape on the high-energy side is found to be related to amplitude fluctuations of the magnetization. In La$_2$CuO$_4$ alone minor contributions from resonance effects may be identified.} The spectra in the other symmetries are not universal. The variations may be traced back to weak resonance effects and extrinsic contributions. For all three compounds we find support for the existence of chiral excitations appearing as a continuum in $A_{2g}$ symmetry having an onset slightly below $3J$. In La$_2$CuO$_4$ an additional isolated excitation appears on top of the $A_{2g}$ continuum.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Observing Muostakh Island disappear: erosion of a ground-ice-rich coast in response to summer warming and sea ice reduction on the East Siberian shelf

Observations of coastline retreat using contemporary very high resolution satellite and historical aerial imagery were compared to measurements of open water fractions and summer air temperatures. We analyzed seasonal and interannual variations of thawing-induced cliff top retreat (thermo-denudation) and marine abrasion (thermo-abrasion) on Muostakh Island in the southern central Laptev Sea. The island is composed of ground-ice-rich permafrost deposits of Ice Complex type that render it particularly susceptible to erosion along the coast, resulting in land loss. Based on topographic reference measurements during field campaigns, we generated digital elevation models using stereophotogrammetry, in order to block adjust and ortho-rectify aerial photographies from 1951 and GeoEye, QuickBird, WorldView-1, and WorldView-2 imagery from 2010 to 2012 for change detection. Coastline retreat for erosive segments ranged from −13 to −585 m and was −109 ± 81 m (–1.8 ± 1.3 m a−1) on average during the historical period. Current seasonal dynamics of cliff top retreat revealed rapid thermo-denudation rates of –10.2 ± 4.5 m a−1 in mid summer and –4.1 ± 2.0 m a−1 on average during the 2010–2012 observation period. Using sea ice concentration data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) and air temperature time series from Tiksi, we calculated seasonal duration available for thermo-abrasion, expressed as open water days, and for thermo-denudation, based on thawing degree days. Geomorphometric analysis revealed that total ground ice content on Muostakh is made up of equal amounts of intrasedimentary and macro ground ice, while its vertical hourglass distribution provides favorable local preconditions for subsidence and the acceleration of coastal thermo-erosion under intensifying environmental forcings. Our results showed a~close relationship between mean summer air temperature and coastal thermo-erosion rates, in agreement with observations made for various permafrost coastlines different from East Siberian Ice Complex coasts elsewhere in the Arctic. Seasonality and recent interannual variations of coastline retreat rates suggest that the combination of macro ground ice distribution in the ground and changes in enviromental forcing generate a cyclicity in coastal thermo-erosion, that is currently increasing in frequency

Permafrost hydrology in changing climatic conditions: seasonal variability of stable isotope composition in rivers in discontinuous permafrost

Role of changing climatic conditions on permafrost degradation and hydrology was investigated in the transition zone between the tundra and forest ecotones at the boundary of continuous and discontinuous permafrost of the lower Yenisei River. Three watersheds of various sizes were chosen to represent the characteristics of the regional landscape conditions. Samples of river flow, precipitation, snow cover, and permafrost ground ice were collected over the watersheds to determine isotopic composition of potential sources of water in a river flow over a two year period. Increases in air temperature over the last forty years have resulted in permafrost degradation and a decrease in the seasonal frost which is evident from soil temperature measurements, permafrost and active-layer monitoring, and analysis of satellite imagery. The lowering of the permafrost table has led to an increased storage capacity of permafrost affected soils and a higher contribution of ground water to river discharge during winter months. A progressive decrease in the thickness of the layer of seasonal freezing allows more water storage and pathways for water during the winter low period making winter discharge dependent on the timing and amount of late summer precipitation. There is a substantial seasonal variability of stable isotopic composition of river flow. Spring flooding corresponds to the isotopic composition of snow cover prior to the snowmelt. Isotopic composition of river flow during the summer period follows the variability of precipitation in smaller creeks, while the water flow of larger watersheds is influenced by the secondary evaporation of water temporarily stored in thermokarst lakes and bogs. Late summer precipitation determines the isotopic composition of texture ice within the active layer in tundra landscapes and the seasonal freezing layer in forested landscapes as well as the composition of the water flow during winter months

Ice-wedge stable isotopes at the Dmitry Laptev Strait (Northeast Siberian Arctic) – indications for Late Quaternary stratigraphy and paleoclimate

Ice wedges are the most abundant type of ground ice in the ice-rich permafrost deposits of the Northeast Siberian Arctic. They are formed by the periodic repetition of frost cracking and subsequent crack filling and refreezing in spring, mostly by melt water of winter snow. Ice wedges can be studied by means of stable-water isotopes. Their isotopic composition is directly linked to atmospheric precipitation (i.e. winter snow) and, therefore, indicative of past climate conditions during the cold season even though also genetic aspects, i.e. sublimation, melting and refreezing in the snowpack and the frost crack, have to be taken into account. In this contribution we present stable-water isotope data of ice wedges from the Oyogos Yar coast of the Dmitry Laptev Strait (72.7°N, 143.5°E). Ice wedges and surrounding sediments were studied and sampled in 2002 and 2007. Ice-wedge stable-water isotopes were analyzed in the stable-isotope lab of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Potsdam, Germany. Sediments and ice wedges were dated using (a) OSL dating, (b) 36Cl/Cl dating (Blinov et al., 2009), (c) radiocarbon dating as well as (d) stratigraphic correlation based on ice-wedge stable isotopes. Based on our chronology the studied ice wedges correspond to different stratigraphic units of the Late Quaternary. These are (1) an Ice Complex of MIS5 age (Wetterich et al., in press), (2) Early Weichselian (MIS4 to MIS3) flood plain deposits, (3) the Middle Weichselian Yedoma Ice Complex of MIS3 age and (d) Holocene themokarst deposits (Opel et al., 2011). Ice wedge stable-water isotope data indicate substantial variations in Northeast Siberian Arctic winter climate conditions (δ18O) as well as shifts in the moisture generation and transport patterns (d excess) during the Late Quaternary, in particular between Glacial and Interglacial but also over the last centuries. An ice wedge of the MIS5 Ice Complex exhibits mean δ18O and d excess values of -33‰ and 7‰, respectively, representing very cold winter temperatures. Small multi-stage ice wedges corresponding to the MIS4 to MIS3 flood plain deposits showed two clusters of isotope values: (1) in their lower parts, i.e. composite sand-ice wedges or “polosatics”, δ18O values of -31 to -28‰ (d excess of 0-5‰) and (2) in their upper parts (classical ice wedge) δ18O values of -34‰ (d excess of 5‰), reflecting rather different formation conditions than climate differences under very cold climate conditions. The huge syngenetic ice wedges of the Weichselian Yedoma Ice Complex (MIS3) are characterized by mean δ18O values of -33‰ to -29‰ and mean d-excess values between 4 and 8‰ corresponding to different altitude levels and reflecting cold to very cold winter temperatures. On top of the Ice Complex as well as in a thermokarst depression of Late Glacial origin, Holocene ice wedges could be found. They have been grown predominantly in the Middle to Late Holocene and exhibit mean δ18O values of about -25‰ and mean d-excess values of 8‰, mirroring distinctly warmer winter temperatures in the Holocene. Recently grown (modern) ice wedges of the last decades are characterized by mean δ18O values of about -21‰ and mean d excess values of 8‰, testifying the recent winter warming in the Arctic. Blinov A, Alfimov V, Beer J, Gilichinsky D, Schirrmeister L, Kholodov A, Nikolskiy P, Opel T, Tikhomirov D, Wetterich S. 2009. Ratio of 36Cl/Cl in ground ice of east Siberia and its application for chronometry. Geochemistry Geophysics Geosystems 10, Q0AA03. Opel T, Dereviagin AY, Meyer H, Schirrmeister L, Wetterich S, 2011. Palaeoclimatic Information from Stable Water Isotopes of Holocene Ice Wedges on the Dmitrii Laptev Strait, Northeast Siberia, Russia. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes 22, 84-100. Wetterich S, Tumskoy V, Rudaya N, Kuznetsov V, Maksimov F, Opel T, Meyer H, Andreev AA, Schirrmeister L, in press. Ice Complex permafrost of MIS5 age in the Dmitry Laptev Strait coastal region (East Siberian Arctic). Quaternary Science Reviews