The structure of sediments of the high floodplain of the Belaya River, represented by the alluvium of the Sartan (Late Glacial) and Holocene age, was studied. The features of soil formation and sedimentation over the past 14-16 thousand years are revealed. In total, in the sections of the high floodplain, 6 deposits of different ages were identified. They studied the humus content, particle size distribution, and features of the addition of deposits as indicators of the paleoclimatic conditions of alluvial sedimentation and soil formation. Floodplain alluvium of the Sartan age (packs 5-6) has low humus content, fulvate and humate-fulvate composition of humus, thin layering, high carbonate content, traces of cryogenesis. These properties testify to the severe climate of the late glacial period. The Holocene floodplain sediments (packs 1–4) are characterized by good humus formation, have a humate or fulvate-humate humus composition, an increased thickness of horizons, and less carbonicity. Such structural features of the Holocene deposits are associated with more favorable conditions for soil formation and sedimentation than in the Sartan time. At the border of alluvium of Sartan and Holocene age, a sharp change in the granulometric composition and properties of sediments was revealed, which indicates a change in the paleoecological situation at the border of the Late Glacial and Holocene. In the Early and Middle Holocene sediments (РВ-ВО, АТ) traces of flash floods were recorded (layers enriched with a fraction of medium sand, traces of erosion of humus horizons). Periods of decreased hydrodynamic activity of the river. Belaya appear in the “weighting” of the particle size distribution of alluvium and in the appearance of powerful humus horizons. Processes that are not related to climate or are only indirectly related include traces of lake runs, probably triggered by earthquakes. Traces of these events were recorded by a change in the genesis of sediments (soil section У-Х) and by layers of accumulation of sand deposits (soil section Гл-1).

Kuklina Svetlana Leonidovna, Senior Lecturer, Irkutsk State University, 1, K. Marx st., Irkutsk, 664003, Russian Federation, e-mail: kukl_swet@mail.ru 

Vorobyeva Galina Aleksandrovna, Candidate of Sciences (Biology), Associate Professor, Irkutsk State University, 1, K. Marx st., Irkutsk, 664003, Russian Federation, e-mail: galvorob@yandex.ru

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