Geological Survey of Finland, Special Paper 46 - arkisto.gsf.fi

Geological Survey of Finland, Special Paper 46
Alla Sharapova and Ljudmila Semenova
The biostratigraphy of the Late Quaternary sequence
from the Kola Peninsula is poorly known. There are
a few palynological studies of the Pleistocene deposits
from this area (Nikonov & Vostruhina 1964,
Armand 1969, Armand et al. 1969, Evserov et al.
The Kola Peninsula is situated in northeast Fennoscandia
and is bounded by the Barents Sea to the
north and the White Sea to the south. The climate
is infl uenced by the relatively warm Murman Coast
current, a branch of the North Atlantic current.
Mean January temperatures range from -5 to -9°C
for the Barents shoreline, and from -10 to -14°C for
the central part of the Kola Peninsula. Mean July
temperatures range from 8 to 10°C and from 11 to
14°C respectively (Koshechkin et al. 1975). Study
site SN-1 is located in the northeastern part of the
Kola Peninsula on the Barents Sea coast (Fig. 1).
The vegetation of the study area belongs to tundra
zone (Ramenskaya 1983).
Pollen analysis was carried out on samples with a
vertical thickness of 1 cm. Wet weight for the samples
was 50 g. In general, treatment followed the
method described by V. Grychuk (1940), including
disintegration in 10% KOH and separation in heavy
liquid KI + CdI 2 , density 2.3. For each sample, 300
arboreal pollen grains were counted on magnifi ca-
100
INTRODUCTION
STUDY AREA
METHODS
1980). The aim of the present study is to establish
a palynostratigraphy and vegetation history of the
Late Pleistocene interstadial event from the northeastern
part of the Kola Peninsula.
Fig. 1. Map of the study area.
tion x 600; nonarboreal pollen and spores were also
tallied. Plant nomenclature follows Vascular Plants
of Russia and Adjacent States (1995). Pollen diagrams
were made using the TILIA program (Grimm
1990). Percentages of pollen and spore taxa were
calculated per total sum of pollen and spores.