SMALL LAKES BOTTOM SEDIMENTS STRATIGRAPHY AND PALEOGEOGRAPHY OF THE ONEGA BAY WEST COAST OF THE WHITE SEA IN THE LATE GLACIAL AND HOLOCENE

New lithological, micropaleontological and geochronometrical data from the bottom sediments of small lakes situated on the western  coast of the White Sea Onega Bay are presented along with the  reconstruction of the Late Pleistocene-Holocene palaeonvironments.  It was established that periglacial lakes were formed in the marginal  zone of the melting ice sheet in the Younger Dryas. Their sediments  represented by paleontologically mute various grained sands and  gravels are found in depressions on the sea coast up to the altitude of 140 m above sea level. The drainage of these lakes at the end of  the Younger Dryas contributed to the formation of a single spacious  freshwater basin in the Onega Bay depression. At the beginning of  the Preboreal, the melting of buried ice on adjacent land caused  swamping of the local depressions and formation of fens and peat  bogs. After the destruction of the ice barrier at the Solovetsky  archipelago and the slowing-down of the glacioisostatic uplift, the  sea water intrusion into the Onega Bay depression took place and  flooding of the adjacent areas occurred at the end of Preboreal –  early Boreal. The layered silt and silty sapropel overlaid the peat in  the depositional sequences initially accumulated in this spacious  reservoir and later in the small lakes. The depressions of small lakes  isolated from the Onega Bay at different times during the Holocene  due to the glacioisostatic uplift and the upward movements of crustal blocks. 

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