The article describes the main stages of studying of the floodplain and the first floodplain terrace of the Dniester river within the Eastern Carpathian Foreland fragment of the valley, and evaluates the results of existing studies. It is discovered that during all the stages of the research morphological and morphometric parameters of the floodplain and the first floodplain terrace of the Dniester river, morphology and facie structures of the alluvial accumulations, as well as palynological analyses of biogenic accumulations buried in an alluvial series are performed. The results obtained during the palynological analyzes are used to date the erosion-accumulation cycles and to reconstruct the physical-geographical conditions of the time of the floodplain and the first floodplain formation of the Dniester terrace. The radiocarbon dating of biogenic sediments buried in alluvial series is also actively conducted at the last stage of the research.
The array of geological and geomorphological information collected at the first two stages of research made it possible to establish that, first, the first floodplain terrace and floodplain were formed during the Holocene in the Dniester Valley. The first floodplain terrace (the height of which reaches 4–6 m above the Dniester riverbed) can be considered as a high floodplain which is often covered by high floods. The terrace is accumulative, but unlike all other terraces of the Dniester it is devoid of the loess cover. In the cross-sections of its accumulations the deposits of the alluvium of the channel facies builted of pebbles are exposed and covered with the alluvium of the floodplain facies composed of sands, sandy loams and loams. The total thickness of alluvium reaches 9–10 m and it doesn’t varysignificantly downstream of the Dniester. Except the Upper Dniester basin, where the thickness of the alluvium increases to 10–18 m, and the layers of peat are found. The floodplain is 4–5 m above the Dniester riverbed and is built of alluvium of the channel facies, dominated by sand and pebble series. In someplaces floodplain is covered with sandy or loamy deposits of floodplain facies.
Secondly, in the Eastern Carpathian Foreland part of the Dniester valley the course of fluvial morpholitogenetic processes was regulated not only by climatic changes and neotectonic movements, but also by human economic activity. During the XIX–XX centuries especially large-scale human influence was on the Dniester riverbeds by construction of flood ramparts, reclamation canals, etc.
The results of recent geomorphological research conducted within the studied fragment of the river valley particularly palynological and radiocarbon dating have significantly improved the idea of morphology, structure and history of floodplain formation and the first floodplain terrace of the Dniester. The research revealed that the accumulation of alluvium of the first floodplain terrace which is above the Dniester riverbed reaches 5,5–6,5 (7) m and started to develop in the late Pleistocene (Bølling–Allerød interstadial) (13 000–11 000 years ago (GI–1)). Presumably in the early Dryas (11 000–10 000 years ago (GS–1)), the first floodplain terrace was dissected by the meandering channel of the Dniester. The alluvial deposits that fill these large paleomeanders are still well preserved and are often exposed in the ledges of the first terrace.
The further development of the floodplain and first floodplain terrace of the Dniester river was taking place in several stages such as the end of the boreal, the beginning of the atlantic, the end of the atlantic, subboreal, the beginning of the subatlantic, as well as during V–VI, X–XII and XIV–XVI centuries. These stages are identified in correlation with the cycles of humidification of the climate and the growth of fluvial activity of riverbeds (flood phases). As a result of the intensification of erosion-accumulation activity of the Dniester the two – three levels of Holocene floodplain were formed up to 4–5 m and 3–4 m high.
The first traces of human activity within the studied fragment of the Dniester valley were dated by subboreal and recorded by the presence of grain pollen in the spore-pollen diagrams of Mainych (Upper Dniester Basin) and Tsvitova (Galician-Bukachiv Basin) sections.
Key words: Dniester valley; floodplain; the first floodplain terrace; alluvium; phases of floods; Allerød; early Dryas; Holocene.
Radiocarbon Dating of Buried Holocene Soils in Siberia
