Modern Facies Structure of the White Sea: Review and New Version.

An overview of the last works concerning the Recent environment and bottom sediments in the White Sea is presented. Special attention is devoted to the existing schemes of the modern facies structure. Up-to-date factual material allowed the authors to offer a new version of the facies structure. According to this version, the White Sea can be divided into two areas (scale 1 : 5 000 000): Northeastern and Southwestern. The Northeastern facies area includes two facies zones: Western and Eastern. The Southwestern facies area includes three facies zones: Central, Transitional, and Peripheral. In turn, the Peripheral facies zone is divided into the following facies subzones: (1) shallow-water Kandalaksha Bay; (2) Onega Bay, and (3) Severnaya Dvina prodelta and the Letnii Coast. Typical peculiarities of the Recent depositional environment and accumulated marine sediments are presented for all facies areas, zones and subzones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]