Home – Home – Jornals – Geography and Natural Resources 2023 number 3

We describe the approach to the preparation and contents of the Atlas of giant aufeis-taryns, a specific form of glaciation in the northeastern part of the Eurasian continent resulting from freezing of groundwater which flows out to the surface. The atlas consists of two parts: illustrative-textual, and cartographic. Part I covers the history of the studies of giant aufeis-taryns, and the dependence of aufeis fields on permafrost-hydrogeological, hydroclimatic, geomorphological and geotectonic conditions have been shown in digitized small-scale maps. A special section of the atlas is devoted to hazardous glacial and permafrost-geological phenomena on which the engineering development of the terrain depends. Results of the study indicate that about 5 % of the territory of the north-east of Russia relates to the aufeis-hazardous zone. Part II contains more than 100 maps of the distribution of aufeis-taryns along the basins of the main rivers of the north-east of Russia (Yana, Indigirka, Kolyma, Anadyr, and Penzhina). The maps display the current position and size of about 7000 aufeis fields as identified from Landsat and Sentinel-2 images, and their comparison with the Cadastre of Aufeis by A.S. Simakov and Z.G. Shilnikovskaya (1958) is presented. An analysis of the collected material showed an ambiguous dynamics of aufeis fields. On the one hand, their number increased by the 21^st century and, on the other, the total aufeis area before the start of ablation decreased. Information on the historical and modern location of aufeis fields is presented in the form of a digital database for large rivers of the north-east of Russia. Most of the collected material in the Atlas needs detailed analysis.