Late Quaternary Environments of the Soviet Union, edited by A.A. Velichko

The Soviet Union occupies a considerable portion of Eurasia, including almost all natural extratropical climatic belts. The territory of the U.S.S.R. comprises 22.4 million km2, 16% of the Earth’s land area. The northern region, extending from the Kola Peninsula in the west to the Chukotsk Peninsula and the Komandorskiye Islands in the east, covers 11 million km2 (Kudria, 1985). Taking these figures into account, it appears obvious that the paleoclimatic and paleogeographic studies of the Soviet North should play a very important part in the evolutionary studies of the Earth. For a long time, however, Quaternary studies in the Soviet Union were focused almost exclusively on European Russia, but in the last decades, as a result of industrial development in Siberia and the Far East, our knowledge about North Asian Quaternary environmental history has been expanded. The Moscow Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. and the Novosibirsk Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. are especially active in developing and conducting long-term Quaternary projects. Undoubtedly, the evolutionary study of natural climatic fluctuations and paleogeographic reconstructions, by using uniform general principles of long-term geological processes, will permit a clear prediction of future natural trends on the Earth. Late Quaternary Environments of the Soviet Union is a collection of articles by Soviet researchers that examines the evolution of the natural environment in the U.S.S.R. during the last 100 000-125 000 years. The monograph consists of nine chapters, an introduction to the English edition by H.E. Wright, Jr., and C.W. Barnosky, and an introduction by the editor of the Russian version, A.A. Velichko. The book discusses the most recent data gathered by Soviet researchers and also provides basic information in brief overviews on the following topics: (1) Late Pleistocene glaciation of the northern U.S.S.R., (2) mountain glaciation, (3) permafrost in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene, (4) loesses, fossil soils and periglacial formations, ( 5 ) vegetational history, (6) development of animal population, (7) inland sea basins, (8) paleoclimatic reconstructions, and (9) dispersal of primitive cultures. This monograph is well structured, well illustrated and especially well printed by the University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis. I highly recommend it both for students of Quaternary studies and those interested in prehistoric archaeology.