This thesis is missing page 57, this page is not in any of the other copies. -Digitization Centre / Scientists believe that the global climate is undergoing significant changes due to anthropogenic increases of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other Greenhouse gases. The relationship between climate and vegetation is not fully understood. Knowledge of the response of vegetation to past climate change aids in the understanding of potential vegetation responses to climatic changes due to the Greenhouse effect. The objectives of this thesis were to determine if vegetation in the lower Lena River Region has changed in the past, what were the factors which caused the changes and over what time scales did the changes occur. To address the objectives, the pollen, stomate and sediment stratigraphy of a core from a medium size lake, located in north-central Siberia, were analysed. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the record spans the last 12310 yr BP, and possibly the last 15000 yr BP. The early part of the fossil record was characterised by short rapid changes in the vegetation. The initial shrub tundra was quickly replaced by herb tundra with sparse vegetation cover. This was followed by a reversion to shrub tundra conditions at ~12000 yr BP. A clear Younger Dryas signal is found in this record between 11000 and 10000 yr BP, characterised by a shift from shrub tundra to herb tundra dominated by taxa with arctic affinities. The warming at the close of the Younger Dryas signalled the first appreciable climatic amelioration at this site. Following 10000 yr BP, Alnus became abundant in the pollen record and likely on the landscape. The dominance of Alnus was short lived however. At ~8500 yr BP arboreal vegetation, dominated by Larix dahurica, became abundant in the pollen and stomate record. The expansion of forests was the result of changes in the orbital parameters of the earth as predicted by Milankovitch cycles. Arboreal vegetation persisted in this region until-3500 yr BP when the modem shrub tundra vegetation was established. The use of a new technique, stomate analysis, proved extremely useful. Stomates accurately recorded the expansion and retreat of treeline across this region. This study clearly indicates the usefulness of this technique, especially for investigating fluctuations of treeline. / Thesis / Master of Science (MS)

As the Russian government enacted the Great Reforms of the 1850s and 1860s, Siberian students in St. Petersburg at the time came to the realization that urban, judicial, and land reforms had to take place in Siberia in order for the region to develop. Starting with meetings of the Siberian Circle in the capital, regionalists strove to elevate Siberia’s socio-political position within the Russian Empire. Regionalists believed that the Russian government envisioned Siberia exclusively as a place of exile and hard labor, as a territory for natural resources, and as a region unworthy of any real development. The chief theorists of regionalism, Grigorii Nikolaevich Potanin and Nikolai Mikhailovich Iadrintsev, sought to reconceptualize the relationship between European Russia and Siberia while publicizing regional needs. For regionalists, ending the system of Siberian exile, fostering the development of education, and pushing Siberia’s political and economic development would make Siberia a vital and vibrant region of the empire and end Siberia’s traditionally subservient status. Forces constantly pushed regionalism, as regionalists found their movement shaped, in turn, by the Russian state, Siberian realities, revolutionary forces, and civil war. Regionalists struggled to come to terms with their desire to see Siberia included in the Russian Empire in meaningful ways even as the government treated the region as an economic, political, and cultural afterthought. While regionalists endeavored to construct viable alternatives for regional development, evolving reality did as much, if not more, to shape regionalism, pushing its adherents in new and surprising directions, sometimes against their will.

This is an investigation of new vertebrate fossil material from the Late Devonian locality of Ivanovka, Uryup River, Siberia. This bone bed material, circa 375 million years in age, represents a unique opportunity to fill a gap in our understanding of Late Devonian diversity, biogeography, and vertebrate evolution: Siberia, at the time, was an independent continent, and yet its fauna remains virtually unknown in comparison with the other paleocontinents, Euramerica and Gondwana. Using synchrotron microtomographic scanning, a non-destructive technique that has never, to our knowledge, been applied to bone bed material, we obtained 3D image stacks that were then modelled to yield triangle meshes representing the bones in three dimensions. These meshes could then be identified, described, and interpreted. Many of the discovered bones belong to the poorly known genus Megistolepis Obruchev 1955, potentially allowing a radical increase in knowledge regarding this taxon. Other material includes lungfish and possible fragments of limbed tetrapods, though the evidence of the latter is scarce. A discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of synchrotron microtomography for the study of bone bed material concludes the paper.

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The essential objective of this study was to reveal the degree to which one man, Nicholas Muraviev, was instrumental in bringing about Russia's annexation of The Amur basin, as well as the territory that became the Maritime Province of Siberia. Introductory chapters provide: a) a background summary of Muraviev's education and of his career prior to his service in Siberia and b) a brief historical survey of the area in which his achievements raised Russia to the position of a Far Eastern Power. The main body of the study comprises an analytical narrative of Muraviev's activities during the decade that culminated in the Chinese capitulation at Aigun in 1858. Closing chapters explain the factors that turned the newly acquired territories into a burden for the Russian Government until it decided to build the trans-Siberian railway, and set forth some conclusions regarding the historical significance of Muraviev's role as Russia's pro-consul in Eastern Siberia. Extensive use was made of the prime single source of information on Muraviev's life, Ivan Barsukov's Graf N. N. Muraviev-Amurskii, po ego pismam, ofitsialnym dokumentam, razskazam sovremmenikov it pechatnym istochnikam (materialy d1ia biografii). Also of significant assistance was the bibliography contained in J. L. Sullivan's doctoral dissertation, Count N. N. Muraviev-Amurskii, a full-scale biography. Sullivan's dissertation preceded two important works bearing on the Muraviev period in Siberia and drawn on extensively in the present study; R. K. I. Quested's The Expansion of Russia in East Asia, 1858-1860, and P. I. Kabanov's Amurskii Vopross. Among other particularly valuable sources was P. V. Schumacher's long article, K istorii priobretenia Amurai. Snoshenias Kitaem s 1848 po 1860 g.” contained in Russki Arkhiv, which, together with Russkaia Starina and Krasny Arkhiv, also contain numerous other documents, memoirs and contemporary accounts that were consulted. Of signal value, too, among the special studies, surveys and reference works consulted was the introductory chapter of Andrew Malozemoff's " Russian Far Eastern Policy, 1881-1904. A complete selected bibliography is included. The research undertaken for this study has led to the conclusion that had it not been for Muraviev's imagination and ingenuity, his willingness, on occasion, to flout authority and his dedication and extraordinary stamina, the annexation to Eastern Siberia of almost 400,000 square miles of territory might never have taken place. Muraviev was sometimes impatient, perhaps sometimes insufficiently impressed by broader politico-military considerations that dictated what he regarded as an inexcusably over-cautious attitude toward Russo-Chinese relations in St. Petersburg. He also tended to exaggerate the immediate benefits that would accrue to Russia once she acted boldly on the Amur. Yet the salient fact remains that it was the intensity with which he pursued his idee fixe, both with words and actions, the years of his methodical preparation, with minimal support from the Russian Government, that made it possible for that Government to nullify the Treaty of Nerchinsk and to extend the Russian Empire's realms on the Pacific's shores down to the Korean frontier. It took important external factors, such as the Crimean War, and the resulting replacement of Muraviev's nemesis, Nesselrode, and his clique, with more capable and far sighted officials, to bring Muraviev's plans to fruition. But to say this is simply to say that the authorities in St. Petersburg, viewing the confluence of events on the international scene, finally recognized that in Muraviev they had the right man at the right place at the right time.

This study explores postsocialist representations of modernity and identity through narratives of social change collected from individuals in rural communities of Buryatia, Russia. I begin with an examination of local conceptualizations of the past, present, and future and how they are imagined in places and spaces. Drawing on 65 days of fieldwork, in-depth interviews, informal discussion, and participant-observation, I elaborate on what I am calling a confrontation with physical triggers of self in connection to place, including imaginations of the countryside and village, sacred and ritual spaces, landscapes, and the environment. I also explore how the anxieties embedded in narratives of change are connected to aspiration for the future and nostalgia for the past.

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x, 94 p. : col. ill. / Siberia is a space that is more ideologic than it is geographic; it lacks defined physical boundaries and has no precise date of founding. Throughout its contemporary history as a Russian territory, the Siberia of public imagination has been dictated primarily by the views and agendas of external actors, and its culture and literature - despite having multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, and multi-religious roots - have been subsumed by the greater Russian tradition to which they are uneasily tied. Using an historical framework, this thesis establishes that there is, in fact, a canon of Siberian literature that stands apart from the Russian canon and that incorporates not only Russian texts but also other European and local indigenous ones. Furthermore, I contend that this canon has both been shaped by and continues to shape a pan-Siberian identity that unifies the border-less, ideologic space in a way that physical boundaries cannot. / Committee in charge: Dr. Katya Hokanson, Chairperson; Dr. Julie Hessler, Member; Dr. Jenifer Presto, Member

Climate-induced landscape evolution is resulting in changes to biogeochemical and hydrologi- cal cycling. In the Arctic and sub-Arctic permafrost zones, rising air temperatures are warming, and in some regions even thawing, the frozen ground. Permafrost is a carbon sink. The thermal state of the ground therefore has important implications on carbon exchange with the atmo- sphere. Permafrost thaw mobilises previously sequestered carbon stocks, potentially turning these high latitude regions into a net carbon source. Borehole temperature and active layer depth measurements are the traditional means for monitoring permafrost, however these point measurements cannot easily be extrapolated to the landscape-scale; Earth Observation (EO) data may be used for such purposes. It is widely recognised that changes in the thermal state of permafrost may be associated with longterm changes in surface hydrology. As the ground shifts from a frozen to a thawed state, Arctic lakes display changes in surface extent. Therefore, it has become common practice to explore lake dynamics, using these as indicators of permafrost change; dynamics being the keyword. Surface hydrology is a dynamic process. Discharge studies in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions are associated with flashy hydrographs. Currently, however, remote sensing of permafrost lake change is done on the scale of decades without explicitly taking seasonality and rapid hydrolog- ical phenology into consideration. To examine the seasonal changes in Arctic surface hydrology on the landscape scale high temporal resolution data are necessary. Synthetic aperture radar instruments are exemplary for such a task. The PhD research focuses on establishing operational techniques for mapping open surface water using synthetic aperture radar data, investigating straightforward raster classification methods and exploring their feasibility by undertaking map accuracy and sensitivity studies (chapter 3). The results are then used to justify error propagation when developing an auto- mated procedure that creates temporal composites of water body extent. These temporal water body classifications are the main EO product used to identify and image seasonal surface water change in Arctic permafrost environments (chapter 4). Furthermore, a terrain-based hydrolog- ical study is undertaken to explore the context of the detected changes and possible links to relief and stream channel network (chapter 5). The aim of this PhD is to demonstrate a new method of dynamic monitoring using the Euro- pean Space Agency’s Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar, recommending its incorpo- ration in longterm lake change studies. Technical feasibility is explored, the inherent trade-off vii between spatial and temporal resolution discussed. An automated surface water change de- tection algorithm is developed and its applicability to monitoring spring floods is assessed; noting possible modifications to the drainage system given present-day land-use and land- cover changes that are taking place in the study area, the hydrocarbon-rich Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District in the North of West Siberia (chapter 6). The key significance of this research is to improve the current knowledge of Arctic lake change by including spring flood events and seasonality in the equation. Therefore, it is strongly believed that this research is of benefit to the entire permafrost community.