Projects

The Elgygytgyn Lake, the White Lake, as the Chukchi call it, lies at the extreme tip of Northeast Siberia, about 900 km west of Bering Strait, which separates the Asian continent from Alaska. It was formed by a meteorite impact about 3.6 million years ago and contains a unique arctic climate archive. Its sediments provide information on how the Arctic has reacted on global cooling about 2.6 million years ago as well as the subsequent warm and cold weather fluctuations and which impact these reactions have on the global climate proceedings.

International scientists from various disciplines have been researching the remote lake for years. Now they are able to answer the first important research questions: the sediments, which they collected during a long-planned, spectacular drill campaign in autumn 2008 and winter/spring 2009, reveal the arctic climate and environmental history successively and reconstruct the emergence of the lake.