Thermokarst dynamics in central eastern Beringia : insights from permafrost and lacustrine sediment cores Widespread landscape changes are presently observed in the Arctic and are most likely to accelerate in the future in particular in permafrost regions which are sensitive to climate warming. To assess current and future developments it is crucial to understand past environmental dynamics in these landscapes. Causes and interactions of environmental variability can hardly be resolved by instrumental records covering modern time scales. However long term environmental variability is recorded in paleoenvironmental archives. Lake sediments are important archives that allow reconstruction of local limnogeological processes as well as past environmental changes driven directly or indirectly by climate dynamics. This study aims at reconstructing Late Quaternary permafrost and thermokarst dynamics in central eastern Beringia the terrestrial land mass connecting Eurasia and North America during glacial sea level low stands. In order to investigate development processes and influence of thermokarst dynamics several sediment cores from…