The extreme Anthropogen of the Arctic: the formation of the Great Glacier, the emergence a man and the Arctic Ocean in the Early Holocene

Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Leading Researcher, Laboratory of geological and environmental Studies, Institute For Complex Analysis of Regional Problems, Far Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, 679016, Birobidzhan, Russian Federation

^* Corresponding author: zhantmich@yandex.ru

Abstract

The relevance of the article stems from the need to consider recent events in the Arctic in recent time, which are largely contradictory. The aim of the study is to show extreme environmental changes in the Arctic of anthropogenic nature, including the emergence of man and the Arctic Ocean in the Early Holocene. The territory of the Arctic was a landmass with high mountains, in the period preceding the Holocene, on which a large glacier formed 30-18 thousand years ago (Late Pleistocene). The glacier slid irrepressibly southward over great distances, where it covered vast areas of Europe and North America. In the years that followed, a dramatic warming and active melting of the glacier began. By the beginning of the Holocene, the glacier had melted, and a narrow strait of the Atlantic appeared at the foot of Greenland. Coniferous-deciduous forests, numerous rivers and the first human settlements appeared on the flat territory of the Arctic, and various animals – mammoths, horses, bulls - spread out. However, a major catastrophic event occurred by the middle of the Holocene (6.0 thousand years ago), after active volcanism in the Arctic: the collapse of the central part of the Arctic to a depth of about 5 km and the formation of the Central Arctic graben, associated with the appearance of a huge amount of endogenous water. There began a rapid movement of water on the flat parts of the Arctic and the formation of the modern huge, shallow (50-100 m) shelf - the Arctic Ocean. Many human settlements were flooded, animals escaped, in part, on high uplands. For example, huge animal cemeteries were preserved on the Novosibirsk Islands. A new cooling of the climate occurred 4 thousand years ago, and an ice sheet formed on the surface of the ocean, which led to the name of the North Glacial Ocean in Russia. Modern man began to explore the coastal territories of the Arctic shelf since the mid - Holocene, but active industrial development of the Arctic began in the 21st century.