Bremerhaven/Cologne June 2nd 2009. An international team of researchers from Russia, Germany, the USA and Austria has conducted a deep drilling programme in the utmost northeast of Russia during the last six months to retrieve several hundred metres of marine sediments, impact breccias and permanently frozen soil. These make new insights into the climate history of the Arctic, crater formation of the Elgygytgyn Lake and permafrost dynamics possible. A milestone has been reached at the beginning of May with the first results of the drilling campaign. The cores gained will help to answer crucial open questions of Arctic geology.

At the utmost northern fringe of north-eastern Siberia, about 900 kilometres west of the Bering Strait and 100 km north of the Arctic Circle (67