Oceanography and Radioecology Laboratory

Head of the Laboratory, Ph.D. Ilyin Gennady Vasil’evich

Brief History

Oceanographic studies are conducted throughout the formation and development of MMBI period. The research is based on the hydrological regime and hydrochemical processes study in interacting ecosystems of the Western Arctic and the North-East Atlantic seas: the Barents, White, Kara, Norwegian, and Greenland. Since the 1970s, with the advent of modern scientific research vessels, high-latitude oceanography, previously inaccessible water areas in the zone of the Spitsbergen archipelago, Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya is being studied.

In the 1990's with the expansion of technical capabilities and range of sought-after scientific tasks, the geography of research was expanded and included also the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian and Azov Seas.
In the modern form the laboratory exists since the late 1980s, and the range of its scientific tasks has been expanded by studying ecological quality of marine basins waters, processes of anthropogenic chemical and radionuclide pollution, marine climatology and tasks of innovative implementation of fundamental research results.

The laboratory has been accredited for oceanographic research, since 1998. It has been accredited for conducting radioecological measurements, since 2006, and in 2011 it passed international intercalibration in the National Physical Laboratory of Great Britain.

The Laboratory carries out a number of studies on Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Department of Earth Sciences of RAS programs, actively participates in innovation activities, carrying out contractual research.
High level of employees qualification is confirmed by participation of the laboratory in international and Russian scientific and innovative projects implementation. Projects of recent years are:

Within the framework of the oceanographic climate study, a method for generalizing heterogeneous oceanographic information was developed. A catalog of large single-connected anomalies of oceanographic fields is created to study their transformation in the Gulf Stream system, the development of information and methodological support for studies of the Barents Sea ecosystems interannual variability. A database of long-term data was developed to study variability of commercial ichthyofauna status in еру seas of the Western Arctic.

Main components of marine ecosystems are included in geoecological direction of the laboratory's research: water masses, bottom sediments, atmospheric aerosols, and biota. Self-purification processes of the Barents Sea from 137Ss and 90Sr radioisotopes have been studied. The purification intensity of aquatic environment and biota components obeys laws of exponential decline in activity. Periods of a twofold decrease in their concentration are 3-6 times shorter than periods of natural half-life. The short-term presence in in Euro-Arctic air of radionuclides specific for the Fukushima-1 NPP does not pose a threat of additional pollution of terrestrial and marine ecosystems in the region.
The formation of the air environment quality of the Euro-Arctic is subject to local, regional and global sources of aerosols influence. Air pollution by heavy metals in the southeastern sector is determined by the Kola industrial agglomeration. Air pollution by aerosols of lead and copper is determined by global transfer processes.


The integrated marine environmental management program is developed on the basis of large marine ecosystems concept (LME). Analysis of heterogeneous oceanographic information allowed developing a concept for integrated assessment of risk factors that affect sustainability of Arctic LMEs. SWOT analysis showed that natural and resource potential of coastal regions should be considered together with potential of adjacent shelf.

   
Main directions of the laboratory: