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The analysis of about 200 samples taken from 42 permafrost-affected soil profiles was carried out on four key sites in different regions of cryolithozone (West Siberia, Central, North, and North-East Yakutia) characterized by different active layer depths and soil lithology. The aim of the study was to determine the influence of different processes of cryogenic mass-exchange on the redistribution and accumulation of major pollutants such as petroleum products, acid-soluble forms of trace elements, polycyclic hydrocarbons, and technogenic radionuclides transferred via atmospheric transport or after the local anthropogenic impact in different soil horizons of Cryosols and in the upper layers of permafrost. Samples were analyzed using modern precise techniques (direct γ-spectrometric measurements with Ge(Li) and NaI(Tl) detectors; fluorometric method; reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography; spectrofluorimetric detection; atomic absorption spectrometry with flame atomization). The study has shown that processes (cryoturbations, frost heaving, gelifluction along with fluvial processes) that strongly affect Cryosols' profile structure can also lead to the active migration and accumulation of local and global pollutants in the middle and lowermost suprapermafrost soil horizons. The accumulation of some pollutants in suprapermafrost horizons of cryogenic soils and in the upper layers of permafrost (in particular, petroleum products and mobile forms of trace elements) can be associated with a combination of factors, such as the relatively light particle size distribution, relatively weak manifestation of cryoturbation processes, and low thickness of the active layer (about 40-60 cm). The integral calculation of the geoaccumulation index values has shown that all of the groups of human-affected soil horizons are moderately to extremely polluted by petroleum hydrocarbons (and at a relatively lower level by trace elements) and the maximum pollution stands for the suprapermafrost horizons as well as in cryoturbated or buried fragments of organogenic matter in some cases. The maxima of the heavy PAH content in permafrost-affected soils can be confined to horizons enriched with anthropogenic inclusions and artifacts (for example, construction slag, coal) and to individual horizons of soils buried as a result of both cryogenic and alluvial processes. The specific activity of the technogenic radionuclide cesium in cryogenic soils revealed its association mainly with the surface organogenic and organomineral horizons of the studied profiles and rarely observed in the cryoturbated fragments of these horizons in the middle and suprapermafrost layers of soil profiles. The necessity of the complex analytical assessment of the permafrost-affected soils has been revealed especially in case of studying of the ecological state of the anthropogenically affected Cryosols.

In recent decades, research of the Alps, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and Cordillera have made great progress in understanding the phenomenon of permafrost. For the most part, this has been made possible due to temperature monitoring. However, the permafrost parameters in an area of more than 2 million square km of the mountainous regions of northeast Asia, for the most part, remain a blank spot in the scientific community. Due to the lack and insufficiency of factual materials, in 2012 the P.I. Melnikov Permafrost Institute began to take temperature measurements in the upper part of the permafrost in the central part of the Verkhoyan-Kolyma uplands, namely the Suntar-Khayat ridge. The article describes the temperature characteristics of air, surface and rocks of the active layer in the range of heights from 850 to 1821 m, in various landscape and topographic elements. For the observation period from 2012 to 2019, we obtained information on temperatures in the soils of the active layer at depths of 1 m, 3 m, 4 m, and 5 m and also air and surface temperature parameters. The availability of data on automated monitoring of rock temperatures in the active layer and the upper horizons of the layer of annual heat rotations made it possible to substantiate the most typical conditions of the temperature conditions of the permafrost zone of the characterized region. The parameters of permafrost existence and development are in favorable conditions. This is shown in the analysis of temperature data of air, surface and active layer. Soil temperatures in the active layer of annual heat rotations are most clearly represented at a depth of 1 m. Currently, on the territory of the mountain regions of Eastern Siberia, there are no more such sites for monitoring the temperature regime of soils. Information on the permafrost parameters in the region will allow us to begin the process of creating new models or checking existing forecasts and the distribution of the temperature pattern. It will also make it possible to evaluate the response of sensitive and vulnerable frozen soils of mountain regions to climate change.

The concentration of main organic and inorganic pollutants (heavy metals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, radionuclides) in surface waters and in water-soil solutions was analysed on three keysites within the permafrost zone: Tazovsky Peninsula (North-West Siberia), Kolyma Lowland (North Yakutia) and adjacent to Yakutsk (Central Yakutia). In the majority of sampling points that are not directly impacted by human activity, the pollutants accumulate in the uppermost organogenic and organo-mineral horizons of natural soils. At the human-affected keysites the major pollutants may accumulate not only in the superficial horizons of the disturbed soils due to the surface runoff but also in the central parts of the profile, in the material buried by cryogenic, solifluction or fluvial processes and in some cases – in the suprapermafrost horizons and in the upper layer of permafrost transported via suprapermafrost water runoff.