Considered is the functioning of the lake drainage basins of Dauria in the Holocene. Phases of relief formation were distinguished that  correspond to transgressive and regressive events in lake basins  controlled by climatic variations in levels and lake areas. During  transgressive phases, sediments are collected in the lake basins due  to coastal processes, cryogenic weathering, fluvial, slope and  biogenic accumulation. In regressive phases, dry bottoms and slopes of lake basins are affected by aeolian action, formation of blowing- out depressions, and sediments are transported by prevailing winds  out of the basins, presumably southeastward. Massive accumulation  of fluvial sediments transported from small dry valleys was recorded  in the lake basins repeatedly in the period 7–8.5 cal. ka BP and at  the Atlantic/Subboreal transition. The period of stabilization of lake levels and soil formation during the Atlantic period has been  identified. Two stages of cryogenic processes  activation at 9.2 and  3.5 cal ka BP were revealed in the deposits of the first terrace of  Lake Khara-Nur. Most detailed reconstruction was produced for the  Late Holocene, for which the high-resolution stratigraphic records allowed to recognize the switches of geomorphological and  sedimentological conditions each 500 years. In the last 10 thousand  years, the overall tendency of lake area decrease and the rise of the  contribution of aeolian processes in the morpholithogenesis was  deduced at the background of general climate aridization.

The manifestation of strong tsunami in historical time and in the Late Holocene was revealed in the deposits of coastal lowlands along the  seacoast of the Eastern and Southern Primorye (from Udobnaya Bay  to Anna Bay and Russian Island), the Sea of Japan, the Russian Far  East. The lithological methods and diatom analysis were used for  identifying of tsunamigenic deposits. The sources of the material and the parameters of the tsunami were estimated for different bays.  Determination of the age of the events was based on radiocarbon dating of hosting organogenic deposits and tephrostratigraphy. The  correlation of events was made between individual sections, and the  results were compared with paleotsunami data over the region. It  was found that in the Sea of Japan coasts, large tsunami occur every 200 years, though the situations of shorter recurrence interval for  strong tsunami can not be excluded also. 

Lake Belaya Struga, Lake Bolshoe, Lake Chernoe are located in the central part of Pskov Lowland, on both sides of the Luga stage  marginal formations (the Late Valday ice sheet) and confined to the  different genetic types of relief. Analyses of the lake sediment  lithology in borehole cores and the position of lakes in the relief  allowed to reconstruct the mechanism of lake basin formation and to mark main stages of the evolution of the lakes in the Late Glacial  time and Holocene. The formation of lake basins within limnoglacial  plains is associated with uneven glacier accumulation in condition of  melting of dead ice and the activity of proglacial lakes. The isolation  of such lakes occurred in the period from 14.4 to 13.8 ka BP. The  formation of lake basins within outwash plains was due to the  subsidence and glacio-karst mechanism. The lacustrine stage of sedimentation in the basins of this type is associated with the  beginning of the Alleroed (in Lake Chernoe no later than 13140 ±  250 ka BP). Radiocarbon dating helped to locate the Late Pleistocene – Holocene boundary in the lacustrine sequence, to estimate the age of lacustrine sediments at different depths and the rates of their  sedimentation. The values of loss on ignition at 550 and 1000 °C  indicate: the minerogenic type of sedimentation prevailed in all lakes during the Late Glacial time and in Lake Belaya Struga during the  Holocene; the organogenic type dominated in the Lake Chernoe and  Lake Bolshoe during the Holocene. It was established that the  highest sedimentation rates in lakes occurred n the Atlantic period of the Holocene. The remaining lifetime of the lakes (duration of time  until the overgrowning with aquatic plants and turning into swamps)  was estimated on the basis of the average rates of sedimentation in  the last 5–7 ka (0.2 to 0.3 mm/ year) and is approximately as  follows: Lake Chernoe – 5500 years, Lake Belaya Struga – 10800  years, Lake Bolshoe – 3500 years.

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. 

The Madeira Island geographically belongs to the archipelago with the same name. It is separated from the Morocco continental shelf  by the uneven oceanic bottom with depths varying between 3 and 4  km. The island itself is an above-water part of the complex partly  eroded shield volcano about 6 km high above the surrounding ocean  bottom. Such relative elevation is comparable with highest volcanic  mountains of the continents. Madeira is situated on a crest of the  submerged volcanic ridge at distal part of the seamountain massif to the southwest from the Pyrenean Peninsula. During the late Cenosoic  the Madeira experienced dramatic endogenic activity  followed by tectonic uplift with seismic and exogenic reworking  during the Quaternary. It is commonly accepted that during the  Neogene, the Madeira volcano was located above one of the hotspots associated with the Earth mantle roof bulge. The main  volume of volcano – its foundation part – was formed before the  Pliocene. Relics of the Miocene volcanic relief represented by gradual submerged lower slopes of the shield volcano may have partly  remained uneroded at its peripheral sectors, which did not  experience large scale gravitation-tectonic movements. During the  following 5 million years, large above-water shield volcano was  formed on top of the Madeira island surface as a result of  accumulation of alternated lava and tephra layers. Younger lava and  pyroclastic flows buried the older volcanic materials composed of  basic and sub-alcaline rocks. Later the volcano became subject to  erosion with radial feather-planform pattern of fluvial incisions exposing ancient volcanic rock formations buried under  younger layers of the shield central part. The modern volcano  planform differs from the ideal shield volcano shape, especially at its  eastern part – severely eroded half of the island dominated by  epivolcanic relief. Macro-scale landforms of unmodified volcanic  origin are prominent only locally along the water divide parts of the  island outer slopes and, more clearly, in the zone of moderate  elevation mountains formed by young plateau basalts at the western part of the island. Presently inactive Madeira volcanic island  represents a model of early stages of the newly formed oceanic land  masses development. Such mode of development can at present be  attributed to several volcanic archipelagos only (for example, the  Hawaii to the northwest from the Main island). However, it can be  considered as the generalized scenario of the Earth surface evolution at transition stage from Hadean (Katararchean) to Eoarchean about 3.8 billion years ago.

New data on the structure and geomorphological features of the geological pattern of the Zimniy Coast (Dvina Bay, White Sea) from  Keretsky cape to Kuya river was obtained using methods of  geomorphological profiling, lithostratigraphic descriptions,  radiocarbon dating and diatom analysis, and the history of the relief development of the bottom and coast of the Dvinsky Bay in the Late Glacial and Early Holocene was reconstructed. An approximate  estimation of the relative sea level change and the relative vertical  movements of the coast is given. It has been established that on the northeastern shore of the Dvina Bay, terraces of 5–20 m height were formed earlier than 9030 ± 80–8410 ± 40 14C (~10.2–9.4 ka cal)  years BP, during the Lateglacial transgression, the amplitude of  which, according to the approximate estimation, did not exceed 15– 16 m  relative to the modern sea level. The north-eastern coast of  the Bay (the Zimniy Coast) underwent relative elevation at a rate of  about 0.2–0.5 mm/year, less than the Letniy Coast, which cannot be  explained only by glacioisostasy. The Severnaya Dvina river delta  was relatively stable. At the end of the Preboreal – the beginning of  the Boreal, a sea regression occurred on the shores of the Bay,  followed by the sharp increase of the Barents Sea waters inflow into  the Bay.

Based on the results of field research, analysis of high-resolution satellite images, detailed study and dating of sediments and soils of  the Nadeinovo, Nizhniy Bulanka and Kuitun sections in the Western  Transbaikalia, the areas of modern development of cryogenic  processes and horizons with cryoturbations of 14.2–11.7 kyr BP  were revealed. Modern cryogenic processes (frost heaving, cracking) are clearly manifested in wetlands of river valleys. Small (up to 1 m)  tufura drums and thermokarst depressions predominate in the  riverbeds of Kuitunka and Tarbagatayka. The time of formation of  paleocryogenic horizons was established in the Nadeino section,  where three layers were distinguished with cryogenic deformations  dated to ~14.2–14.0, ~12.7–12.5 and 11.9–11.7 cal kyr BP. In the  Nizhniy Bulanka section, a thick cryogenic horizon was found, which  formed ~12.8 kyr BP. In the Kuytun section, a buried thermoerosion- suffosion gully was discovered that formed ~14.5–14.3 kyr BP. There  are syngenetic and epigenetic cryogenic horizons. In the  Kuitunka river basin, polygonal-block morphology is distinguishable  within plowed areas of watersheds and slopes on high-resolution  satellite images. Dimensions of the hillocks range from 4 to 50 m,  height – 0.5–2 m. The hummocks are divided by depressions and  hollows. The time of formation of this paleocryogenic relief is the Early Sartan (29–23 kyr BP). Subsequently, the polygonal-block  relief experienced several stages of formation and destruction and in  the Holocene turned into a hilly-valleys relief with the island  distribution of permafrost. Thawing of permafrost in the warming of  the Late Glacial and early Holocene caused the activation of thermal  erosion, linear erosion, suffosion and changes in the microrelief in  the upper parts of the erosion network. Modern dells, rills, gullies partially inherit paleocryogenic depressions and troughs.

The article discusses the origin of wedge-shaped structures observed on southern lowland of the Gulf of Finland near the village of Nizino  in 2000–2005 and 2014. Obtained results confirm the seismic origin  of the wedges. Morphological characteristics, nature and consistency of the filling, deformation of the enclosing strata show the instant disclosure, a quick one-act filling cavities with material from the sides and roof, the  subsequent momentary closure with compression in connection with the directed lateral dynamic effects. In addition, we analyzed the  distribution of various deformation structures in Paleozoic rocks and  postglacial sediments within this region and arrived to the conclusion about their structural control and paleoseismic origin.