Glacial Lake Vitim, a 3000-km3 outburst flood from Siberia to the Arctic Ocean

Abstract: A prominent lake formed when glaciers descending from the Kodar Range blocked the River Vitim in central Transbaikalia, Siberia. Glacial Lake Vitim, evidenced by palaeoshorelines and deltas, covered 23,500km2 and held a volume of ~3000km3. We infer that a large canyon in the area of the postulated ice dam served as a spillway during an outburst flood that drained through the rivers Vitim and Lena into the Arctic Ocean. The inferred outburst flood, of a magnitude comparable to the largest known floods on Earth, possibly explains a freshwater spike at ~13calka BP inferred from Arctic Ocean sediments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]