Lithological characteristics of the modern sediments of the Pechora Sea

Abstract

The Pechora Sea is of great economic importance for the Russian Federation. Knowledge of the history of the shelf of the Russian Western Arctic seas is impossible without studying the modern processes of sedimentation and lithological structure of the sections. Therefore, the spatial distribution and variety of types of bottom sediments was studied by direct methods of geological testing in August – September 2018 during the 38 route of the research vessel "Academician Nikolai Strakhov". The link of lithological types of bottom sediments to the forms of bottom topography of different origin was established. The characteristics of the late Quaternary sedimentary cover in the Pechora Sea were revealed. The sampling of bottom sediments of the Pechora Sea was carried out using a dredger and a shock ground tube. The sampling points were selected based on the materials of continuous seismic profiling and bathymetric bottom survey. As a result of the study, the following types of bottom sediments were identified: pelitic mud, aleurite-pelitic mud, clay, silt, sand, moraine deposits. The lithological characteristic of various types of the Pechora Sea modern sediments has been presented in the paper. It has been shown that in the most shallow water – the southern and central part of the Pechora Basin – psammitic facies dominate. This is connected with the intensive flow of sandy-silt material from the continent due to river runoff. In the northern – the deepest part of the Pechora basin – thin sediments (pelitic and aleurite-pelitic silts) are mainly distributed. The presence of moraine deposits in the southeastern part of the Pechora Sea suggests that there was a glacier here during the Late Valdaian, while the rest of the Pechora Basin was a lowland with a cryoarid subaerial landscape

Keywords

• lithology
• sediments facies
• landscape
• Pechora Sea