At the August 2004 we performed the pilot geocryological investigations of the Yenisey Gulf coasts. For these works the “Preven” boat was used. During the trip from the city of Dudinka to Cape Shaitanskiy at the western coast of Taimyr Peninsula we studied coastal exposures, estimated the intensity of coastal processes, and searched for the most prospective key locations for detailed investigations in the future.

The most interesting sections of the sediments of various age and origin were observed at Krasniy Yar, Sopochnaya Karga, and Cape Shaitanskiy . The geocryological study of natural exposures was accompanied by sampling of frozen sediments in order to assess ice content, grain size, organic carbon content, salinity, chemical, mineralogical, and isotope composition. The various types of ground ice (ice wedges, tabular massive ice) were studied. The body of folded tabular ground ice with inclusions of clay was examined in the big thermocirque (section SK-3, 0.5 km to the north from the Sopochnaya Karga meteorological station). The visible thickness of ice is 10 to 12 m . The ice body is overlaid by taberal sediments (loams with large vertical ice shliers), formed in thaw lake basin; the thickness of sediments is 8 to 10 m At the upper part of the section the syngenetically frozen horizon of loams with ice wedges and buried peat layer was observed. At the thermoerosional coast of Yenisey Gulf (section SK-5, 4.5 km to the north from the Sopochnaya Kargameteorological station) the epigenetically frozen marine clayswith reticulate cryostructure were studied. These sediments with epigenetic ice wedges are overlaid by syngenetically frozen continental loams and sandy-loamswith syngenetic ice wedges. Preliminary results of field investigation show that the cryogenic structure of coastal sediments in study area is very complicated. The future field works at the selected sites will be connected with more detailed study of permafrost structure and composition, which will help to solve the problems of age and origin of sediments with massive ground ice. The other direction of future investigations is the study of coastal dynamics and destructive cryogenic processes. This work was supported by INTAS grant no. 01-2329.