Hydrochemistry of Holocene ice wedge near Anadyr

In recent research the Holocene ice wedges exposed in the outcrop of the first marine terrace near Anadyr in the east of the Chukchi Peninsula have been investigated. The first marine terrace has polygonal relief, the size of the polygons is about 8x12 m. The enclosing sediments are represented with peat of about 1.5 m thick, underlaid with sandy loam up to 2 m thick; and horizontally-layered sand below. Vertically layered, yellowish gray ice of the ice wedges is located in peat and in the underlying sandy loam. 20 ice samples were collected from Holocene ice wedges, as well as ice from modern ice veinlet and water from The Onemen Bay. It was found that mineralization of the studied Holocene ice wedges is low, does not exceed 80 mg/L, Na+, Ca2+, and Cl- dominates. Similar values of mineralization and ionic composition were obtained for the modern ice veinlet. The obtained data close fit with ice wedges data obtained in other regions of Chukotka, both continental and coastal. Mineralization of most of the previously studied ice wedges did not exceed 150 mg/L. Low values of mineralization of ice wedges near Anadyr demonstrate mainly meteoric source of water forming the ice.