The Late Pleistocene–Holocene climate history in the western Todzha basin (Eastern Tuva)

The Late Quaternary history of climate and deposition environments in the western Todzha basin has been reconstructed from the respective lacustrine and fluvial deposits. Data from sedimentary sections have provided clues to the causes and timing of sudden deposition changes, including those associated with Holocene tectonic activity in the Taskyl fault. Especially informative are permafrost, diatom, spore-pollen, and tree-ring data from a section at the Merzly Yar locality where frozen ground has preserved the pristine rhythmic pattern of sediments. The Merzly Yar section stores a record of dramatic consequences of large earthquakes generated by the fault which produced a large damlake. The revealed pattern of discontinuous limnic deposition, with prominent tree markers and syngenetic ice wedges, places exact constraints on the stratigraphy of the section and allows its correlation with Holocene climate events within the intervals of fossil soils and vegetation.