#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. A field summer research school for the permafrost study started in Norilsk on July 1. The project includes trips.
First, Polar State University (PSU) students visited the Zvenigorod Biological Station of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov (MSU), and this summer Muscovites came to Norilsk to study permafrost on the spot.
Joint program of the Polar State University named after N.M. Fedorovsky and Moscow State University was launched in Norilsk with the Nornickel support.
“The problem of the permafrost state is now relevant for many areas of science and economics. The permafrost state background monitoring is one of the most important components of the modern state agenda in the field of safe and sustainable development of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. With our research and developments, we want to offer our own approaches for its organization”, Pavel Kotov, a participant in field research, director of the research center at PSU, told This is Taimyr.
Scientists and students went out into the tundra near Oganer with the Norilsk industrial region landscape zoning maps: they highlight the most typical areas where a whole range of research will be carried out.
On the selected sites from Dudinka to Talnah, route surveys, drilling using engineering geophysics, and soils laboratory study will take place. In addition, the field school participants will measure the specific fluxes of greenhouse gases in water bodies and in the tundra.
The school participants will study the territories occupying the largest area, where the most typical landscapes of permafrost conditions are presented. Researchers have already identified five different typical sites – in the area of the Skalisty mine, near the Norilskaya river, in the area of Oganer, Alykel and in Dudinka. In the future, permafrost polygons will be created here for permafrost background monitoring.
After processing and systematizing the collected material, Nornickel plans to conduct geological surveys in these places to install background monitoring equipment.
Employees and students of the PSU construction department, representatives of the geocryology department of the geology faculty of Moscow State University, specialists in the field of atmospheric physics, soil scientists and geophysicists will conduct a complex of studies in Norilsk using various methods to obtain preliminary data on the geological and permafrost conditions of the test sites.
In the future, experts intend to collect information from future test sites for processing in a special center of Polar State University and Norilsk Nickel. Here, specialists will monitor the climate impact on the degradation of permafrost soils and conduct mathematical modeling of the permafrost behavior. Preliminary models can be made as early as next year.
Recall that the damage from thawing permafrost in the Arctic over 30 years was estimated at seven trillion rubles. We also wrote that scientists believe that the permafrost preservation should become a federal task.
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Text: Denis Kozhevnikov, Photo: Nikolay Shchipko
