ARKHANGELSK, July 21. /TASS/. The Arctic Floating University expedition onboard the Mikhail Somov research/survey vessel for the first time conducted a comprehensive survey on Cape Sopochnaya Karga near a polar station on the Taymyr Peninsula, the expedition's team leader Ludmila Drachkova told TASS, adding the works featured geologists, geomorphologists, microbiologists and other experts.

"The Arctic Floating University has worked at this location for the first time," she said. "The expedition's all participants have gone ashore."

Russia's Sopochnaya Karga all-season polar station in the Arctic is located on the Taymyr Peninsula, on the right coast near the Yenisei Bay mouth.

The expedition participants took samples from the sand thickness. In 2012, the carcass of an adult mammoth, the so-called Sopkarga mammoth, was found nearby, in the neighboring cliffs. "In the future, the studies to find and survey ancient microorganisms and their DNAs will be conducted at scientific laboratories of the Mechnikov North-Western State Medical University and at the Institute of Experimental Medicine. We hope results of these studies may expand our understanding about microorganisms that inhabited the Arctic coasts during the Pleistocene, and we will be able to understand better the evolution of modern bacteria, including those related to species important for medicine and biotechnology," Artemy Goncharov, head of the Laboratory of Functional Genomics and Proteomics of Microorganisms at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, explained to TASS.

He has participated in the Arctic Floating University expeditions for the third year. In previous voyages, the scientist collected Arctic bacteria and bacteriophages. Given the global climate change, the Arctic is becoming a key region requiring monitoring of the diversity and the population structure of pathogenic microorganisms. Polar ecosystems are the most important object of monitoring as there the preservation of microorganisms and their DNAs in cryogenic conditions may continue for long (dozens of millenniums).

Geology of Sopochnaya Karga

Anton Shmanyak, a leading geologist at the Karpinsky Russian Geological Research Institute, and Arina Bartova, a researcher at that institute, have surveyed coastal cliffs of the Yenisei Bay and fresh thermocirques (landforms formed by melting of underground ice) north of the Sopochnaya Karga polar station to study quaternary formations.

The ice-ground layer there may be of glacial or marine origins, different researchers say. "Terraces with relative heights from 1 to 2.5 m are described along the sides of the valley of the recent (geologically speaking) descent of Lake Dolgan - the dead bed of the Sopochnaya River," the researchers added. They have been refining geological maps of the Russian Federation.

The Mikhail Somov will head for the Vilkitsky Island, which is located in the southern part of the Kara Sea between the mouths of the Ob and the Yenisei Rivers.

About Floating University

The Arctic Floating University is a joint project of the Northern Arctic Federal University (NAFU) and the Northern Branch for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring. The expeditions continue since 2012. The project's partners and sponsors are the Ministry for Development of the Far East and Arctic, VTB, Novatek, Norilsk Nickel, the Arkhangelsk Region's government, and the Russian Geographical Society.