This project (grant no. ME 1169/21) is carried out within the scope of the DFG Priority Programme 1006 „ICDP“. It contributes to the ICDP funded „El'gygytgyn Drilling Project“ in northeastern Siberia, specifically to the 318 m long lake sediment record that was recovered in spring 2009 above a suevite layer in the 3.6 Myr old El´gygytgyn impact crater.

Major project objectives are the detection and investigation of mass movement deposits that are incised into the 'pelagic' lake sediments, in order (i) to enable the compilation of a composite profile restricted to the ´pelagic´ sediment record, (ii) to understand the mechanisms and temporal variability of mass movement events, (iii) to contribute to the improvement of the age model for the record by identifying erosional gabs due to mass movement, and (iv) to determine the timing and reason for the asymmetric sediment fill in the crater. The project thus provides important background information for the paleoclimatological investigation of the lake sediment record within the scopes of other national (BMBF, DFG) and international (predominantly U.S. National Science Foundation and Russian Foundation for Basic Research) projects, and promises fundamental contributions to the unterstanding of gravitational mass movements in large lakes.