On-going permafrost thaw in discontinuous permafrost regions produces significant amounts of small permafrost subsidence and depressions, while large lakes are likely to drain into streams and ...rivers. The intensification of permafrost thaw may alter the size distribution and chemical composition of organo-Fe–Al colloids in lakes and rivers. We used a continuum of surface water bodies, from permafrost subsidence, small depressions and thaw ponds to large lakes and rivers that drain the Western Siberia Lowland (WSL), to assess OC, major and the trace element size distribution between the 20-μm, 5-μm, 1.2-μm, 0.45-μm, 0.22-μm, 0.025-μm and 1-kDa (∼1.4nm) size fractions. This approach allowed us to distinguish the organic and organo-ferric colloids that were responsible for the transport of trace elements in surface waters and address their evolution during possible physico-chemical and biological processes. Both conventionally dissolved (<0.22μm) and low-molecular-weight (<1kDa) fractions exhibited an order of magnitude decrease in DOC/Fe in the landscape continuum “depressions and permafrost subsidence→ thaw ponds→ thermokarst lakes→ streams→ rivers”. Thermodynamic modeling and on-site size separation suggested that a number of trace elements (TEs), including alkaline earth elements and several micronutrients (Zn, Ba, Mn, and Ni), decreased the degree of their binding to DOM along the landscape continuum, whereas the majority of insoluble TEs (Al, Fe, Co, Cd, Cu, Pb, REEs, Th, and U) remained complexed with DOM in the LMW<1 kDa fraction. Two primary sites of colloid generation included (i) ground vegetation and peat leaching, which supplied DOM complexes of divalent metals and organo-Al entities to thaw ponds and lakes; and (ii) Fe2+ oxidation and TE co-precipitation with Fe hydroxides in the presence of surface DOM at groundwater discharge sites within the riparian/hyporheic zones of rivers. Under a warming climate scenario, an increase in the thickness of the thawing depth will intensify the input of inorganic components from deep mineral horizons and possibly underground waters thus producing the enrichment of large lakes in Fe-rich colloids and particles. The speciation of divalent metal micronutrients (Cu, Ni, and Co) and toxic metals (Al, Cd, Pb, and U) that are complexed within DOM will most likely remain conservative. Overall, the WSL’s surface water colloidal composition may shift from DOM-rich and DOM-Al-rich to Fe-rich, and the export of low-soluble trivalent and tetravalent hydrolysates from the soil to rivers will increase.
Snapshots of the Soul considers how photography has shaped Russian poetry from the early twentieth century to the present day. Drawing on theories of the lyric and the elegy, the social history of ...technology, and little-known archival materials, Molly Thomasy Blasing offers close readings of poems by Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Joseph Brodsky, and Bella Akhmadulina, as well as by the late and post-Soviet poets Andrei Sen-Sen'kov, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, and Kirill Medvedev, to understand their fascination with the visual language, representational power, and metaphorical possibilities offered by the camera and the photographic image. Within the context of long-standing anxieties about the threat that visual media pose to literary culture, Blasing finds that these poets were attracted to the affinities and tensions that exist between the lyric or elegy and the snapshot. Snapshots of the Soul reveals that at the core of each poet's approach to "writing the photograph" is the urge to demonstrate the superior ability of poetic language to capture and convey human experience.
The "Silver Age" (c. 1890-1917) has been one of the most intensely studied topics in Russian literary studies, and for years scholars have been struggling with its precise definition. Firmly ...established in the Russian cultural psyche, it continues to influence both literature and mass media.The Archaeology of Anxietyis the first extended analysis of why the Silver Age occupies such prominence in Russian collective consciousness.
Galina Rylkova examines the Silver Age as a cultural construct-the byproduct of an anxiety that permeated society in reaction to the social, political, and cultural upheavals brought on by the Bolshevik Revolution, the fall of the Romanovs, the Civil War, and Stalin's Great Terror. Rylkova's astute analysis of writings by Anna Akhmatova, Vladimir Nabokov, Boris Pasternak and Victor Erofeev reveals how the construct of the Silver Age was perpetuated and ingrained.
Rylkova explores not only the Silver Age's importance to Russia's cultural identity but also the sustainability of this phenomenon. In so doing, she positions the Silver Age as an essential element to Russian cultural survival.
This paper discusses sources of significant errors that occur in the course of determination of the primary environmental standard for natural waters: the maximum permissible concentration (MPCs) of ...pollutants. It is shown that the deterministic interpretation of environmental standards makes such errors inevitable. A simplified methodology is proposed for the assessment and tracking of the aggregate of errors that occur in the course of MPC determination. In the framework of the risk-oriented approach, a scheme for probabilistic assessment of compliance with established water use requirements and a damage assessment methodology for environmental violations have been developed.
•Climate variability is the main factor of the variations of pedofeatures in Late Holocene.•Five pedogenetic stages were distinguished starting from Late Pleistocene.•Argic horizons most probably ...appeared during the early pedogenetic phases (Terminal Pleistocene – Early Holocene)•The formation of the mollic horizon can be attributed to the Middle Holocene.•Degradation of a mollic horizon occurred during afforestation between Middle and Late Holocene.•Brief arid phases were registered ∼ 2500 and ∼ 1500 years ago.
Soils buried under five defensive ramparts of the Early Iron and Middle Ages were studied in the forest-steppe zone of the Russian Plain (Lipetsk region, Russia). The time of the burial differs from each other for hundred years allowing studying variation of soil properties based on short-term chronosequences within these ranges and reconstructing the comparatively short climatic trends. Similar topographic positions, particle-size distribution, bulk elemental composition, and major morphological features were the base for comparing buried and surface soils, aiming to link the differences in the pedofeatures with climatic fluctuations. The studied soils display polygenetic features that were formed under forest (clay cutans) or steppe (carbonate neoformations, mollic horizons) environments. Generally, the Early Iron Age environment was similar to the modern one, which is confirmed by the similarity between the soil buried ∼ 2500 yrs BP and the surface soils (Greyzemic Luvic Phaeozems). The detailed chronosequence allows distinguishing alternating humid and arid phases during the studied time interval. Soil response to climatic phases is recorded by rather dynamic pedofeatures: carbonate, gypsum and greyzemic properties, and the properties of the mollic horizon. Following climatic fluctuations, these pedofeatures can appear and then be erased or transformed, evidenced by a multi-layered cutan complex with alternating clay and carbonate coatings. As a result, the surface soils of the study area are polygenetic and combine features formed under steppe and forest environments. The alternating phases of forest and steppe pedogenesis throughout the entire Holocene, especially in the Late Holocene, when ancient tribes influenced the studied areas, testifies against the decisive role of anthropogenic input in the formation of Chernozems.
Russian children's literature has a history that goes back over 400 years. This book offers a comprehensive study of its development, setting Russian authors and their books in the context of ...translated literature, critical debates and official cultural policy.
The Bilingual Muse analyzes the work of seven Russian poets who translated their own poems into English, French, German, or Italian. Investigating the parallel versions of self-translated poetic ...texts by Vladimir Nabokov, Joseph Brodsky, Andrey Gritsman, Katia Kapovich, Marina Tsvetaeva, Wassily Kandinsky, and Elizaveta Kul'man, Adrian Wanner considers how verbal creativity functions in different languages, the conundrum of translation, and the vagaries of bilingual identities. Wanner argues that the perceived marginality of self-translation stems from a romantic privileging of the mother tongue and the original text. The unprecedented recent dispersion of Russian speakers over three continents has led to the emergence of a new generation of diasporic Russians who provide a more receptive milieu for multilingual creativity.
The technology which is being developed based on the seismic entropy method for monitoring and forecasting the earthquakes in the territory of Russia is described. This technology relies on ...seismostatistics and makes it possible to automate the monitoring system and to efficiently tap the networks of ground-based and ground-and-satellite-based observations of operative precursors. The main seismic systems responsible for the preparation of the strong earthquakes with magnitudes
М
≥ 5.5 are described. The track and energy diagrams constructed for each seismic system provide the means for monitoring the preparation and forecasting the strong earthquakes in the real-time mode. Forty-four seismic systems controlling almost all seismically hazardous regions in Russia were identified and tested in real time during the period from 2010 to 2015. The guidelines for the practical application of the results of monitoring and forecasting are developed.
Russia's provinces have long held a prominent place in the nation's cultural imagination. Lyudmila Parts looks at the contested place of the provinces in twenty-first-century Russian literature and ...popular culture, addressing notions of nationalism, authenticity, Orientalism, Occidentalism, and postimperial identity. Surveying a largely unexplored body of Russian journalism, literature, and film from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Parts finds that the harshest portrayals of the provinces arise within "high" culture. Popular culture, however, has increasingly turned from the newly prosperous, multiethnic, and westernized Moscow to celebrate the hinterlands as repositories of national traditions and moral strength. This change, she argues, has directed debate about Russia's identity away from its loss of imperial might and global prestige and toward a hermetic national identity based on the opposition of "us vs. us" rather than "us vs. them." She offers an intriguing analysis of the contemporary debate over what it means to be Russian and where "true" Russians reside.
Permafrost‐affected soils in the northern circumpolar region store more than 1,000 Pg soil organic carbon (OC), and are strongly vulnerable to climatic warming. However, the extent to which changing ...soil environmental conditions with permafrost thaw affects different compounds of soil organic matter (OM) is poorly understood. Here, we assessed the fate of lignin and non‐cellulosic carbohydrates in density fractionated soils (light fraction, LF vs. heavy fraction, HF) from three permafrost regions with decreasing continentality, expanding from east to west of northern Siberia (Cherskiy, Logata, Tazovskiy, respectively). In soils at the Tazovskiy site with thicker active layers, the LF showed smaller OC‐normalized contents of lignin‐derived phenols and plant‐derived sugars and a decrease of these compounds with soil depth, while a constant or even increasing trend was observed in soils with shallower active layers (Cherskiy and Logata). Also in the HF, soils at the Tazovskiy site had smaller contents of OC‐normalized lignin‐derived phenols and plant‐derived sugars along with more pronounced indicators of oxidative lignin decomposition and production of microbial‐derived sugars. Active layer deepening, thus, likely favors the decomposition of lignin and plant‐derived sugars, that is, lignocelluloses, by increasing water drainage and aeration. Our study suggests that climate‐induced degradation of permafrost soils may promote carbon losses from lignin and associated polysaccharides by abolishing context‐specific preservation mechanisms. However, relations of OC‐based lignin‐derived phenols and sugars in the HF with mineralogical properties suggest that future OM transformation and carbon losses will be modulated in addition by reactive soil minerals.
Plain Language Summary
Permafrost thawing and subsequent decomposition of large parts of the soil organic carbon (OC) currently stored in the northern circumpolar permafrost region are projected to cause a positive feedback on global warming. To understand the potential consequences of climate change for organic matter (OM) decomposition in permafrost soils, we determined the concentration and degree of decomposition of two dominating constituents of soil OM, lignin and non‐cellulosic carbohydrates by using CuO oxidation and TFA hydrolysis, respectively, in density fractionated soils covering a longitudinal gradient of northern Siberia (from east to west: Cherskiy; Logata; Tazovskiy). We found a stronger degradation of lignin and neutral sugars at Tazovskiy with its shallower active layer, probably due to better aeration, as compared to the other sites. Our study, hence, suggests that climate‐induced degradation of permafrost soils will promote lignin and carbohydrate transformation and carbon loss. In addition, larger contents of clay and Fe and Al oxides at the Cherskiy site with appear to favor accumulation of lignin and neutral sugars, likely suggesting the extent of OM transformation is further modulated by soil mineralogical properties.
Key Points
The deepening of active layer favors the decomposition of lignin and plant‐derived sugars in permafrost soils
Soil clay and mineral phases appear to favor accumulation of lignin and neutral sugars in permafrost soils
Magnitude of climate‐induced degradation of lignin and carbohydrates will depend on soil texture and mineralogical properties
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