This article is about a type of permafrost soil. For the rural localities in Russia, see
Yedoma (rural locality).
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Yedoma/ˈjɛdəmə/ (
Russian: е́дома) is an organic-rich (about 2% carbon by mass)
Pleistocene-age
permafrost with ice content of 50–90% by volume.[1] Yedoma are abundant in the cold regions of eastern
Siberia, such as northern
Yakutia, as well as in
Alaska and the
Yukon.[2]
Characteristics
The landscape of yedoma areas is of glacier plains and hills with shallow depressions known as
alas.[3] Yedoma usually form in
lowlands or stretches of land with rolling hills where ice wedge polygonal networks are present, in stable relief features with accumulation zones of poor drainage, severe cold and arid
continental climate zones resulting in scanty vegetation cover, intense
periglacial weathering processes, as well as the proximity of sediment sources, such as low mountain ranges and foothills.[2]
The amount of
carbon trapped in this type of permafrost is much more prevalent than originally thought and may be about 210 to 500
Gt,[4] that is a multiple of the amount of carbon released into the air each year by the burning of
fossil fuels.[5] Thawing yedoma is a significant source of
atmospheric methane (about 4
Tg of CH 4 per year).
The Yedoma region currently occupies an area of more than one million square kilometers from northeast Siberia to Alaska and
Canada, and in many regions is tens of meters thick. During the
Last Glacial Maximum, when the global sea level was 120 m lower than that of today, similar deposits covered substantial areas of the exposed northeast Eurasian continental shelves. At the end of the last
ice age, at the
Pleistocene–
Holocene transition, thawing yedoma and the resulting
thermokarst lakes may have produced 33 to 87% of the high-latitude increase in atmospheric
methane concentration.[6]
Frederick West (1996), American Beginnings The University of Chicago Press,
ISBN0-226-89399-5, p52
Velichko 1984, p141, Chapter 15, Tomirdiaro: Periglacial Landscapes and loessa Accumulation in the late pleistocene arctic and subarctic
K. M. Walter, S. A. Zimov, J. P. Chanton, D. Verbyla & F. S. Chapin III, "Methane bubbling from Siberian thaw lakes as a positive feedback to climate warming", Nature, 443, 71-75, 2006
Rutter&Velichko (1997) "Quaternary of northern eurasia: Late pleistocene and holocene landscapes, stratigraphy and environments, Nat W. Rutter, editor-in-chief, Guest editors A. A. Velichko et al., Vols 41/42 July/August 1997,
ISSN1040-6182
Late Quaternary environments of Soviet Union, A.A. Velichko, engl edition Wright&Narnosky, pp176-177, University of Minnesota Publ, Longman, London 1984,
ISBN0-582-30125-4
Schirrmeister, L., Fedorov, A. N., Froese, D., Iwahana, G., Van Huissteden, K., Veremeeva, A., eds. (2022). Yedoma Permafrost Landscapes as Past Archives, Present and Future Change Areas. Lausanne: Frontiers Media SA.
doi:10.3389/978-2-88976-466-2