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The mineralogy and contents of major and trace elements (including REE+Y) in bulk samples and separate size fractions of caviar-like ironstones from the Kamysh-Burun deposit (Kerch iron province) are studied to estimate the contributions of different REE+Y species to the total budget. The analyzed ore samples contain MREE adsorbed on Fe³⁺-(oxy)hydroxides, as well as LREE authigenic phosphates. The predominant rhabdophane-type (Ce(PO₄)nH₂O) phases are enriched in La, Pr, Nd, and Ca, depleted in Ce, and free from Th. The REE carriers belong to solid solution series of two main types: LREE(PO₄)·nH₂O - (Ca,Ce,Th)(PO₄)·H₂O (rhabdophane-like phase and brockite) or LREE(PO₄)·nH₂O - (Ca,U,Fe³⁺)((PO₄),(SO₄))·2H₂O (rhabdophane-like phase and tristramite). REE phosphates occur most often in the ≤ 0.25 mm fractions of ironstones, where average and maximum ΣREE contents ( X_av = 606-1954 ppm; X_max = 769-3011 ppm) are comparable with the respective amounts in the Chinese industrial clay-type REE deposits. The Kerch ores are commercially attractive unconventional resources of highly demanded Pr and Nd: they can be extracted at relatively low costs, due to high Pr/Ce and Nd/Ce ratios, while low Th and U reduce the environmental risks from stockpiled wastes.

It has been established that megacities, due to an excessive concentration of anthropogenic pressure, pose increased risks to human health and contribute to the growth primarily of mental illness. In this regard, a new medical-urban approach to the study of modern megacities is justified using the city of Moscow as an example. It is a multidisciplinary approach and includes a whole range of sciences and scientific directions: from urban planning, architecture, geography and ecology to medicine, psychology and sociology. It is confirmed by facts and arguments that the most effective for the implementation of the medical-urban approach is territorial planning, which is aimed at creating a spatial environment favorable for the human life and sustainable development of the city. It should focus on the spatial development of the territory, change the environment at the request of residents and form social design centers where residents, together with authorities and specialists, would propose initiatives for the development of their territories. It is illustrated by concrete examples that Moscow, as the basis of the urban development strategy, is oriented towards improving the quality of life and living comfort of the townspeople, the orientation of an acceptable health care system, health economics, and the fight against depression, which is characteristic of residents of all large cities of the world. The health programs of successful cities of the world (London, New York, and Singapore) and government programs of Moscow are analyzed, which are aimed at developing public ecological transport, forming an effective protection of public health from the adverse effects of urban factors, ensuring medical rehabilitation of the population and reducing risks to public health and improving the quality of life of citizens. It was revealed that the implementation of these programs in Moscow contributes to the formation of “health landscapes”: territories where the quality of the urban environment and living conditions of the population are approaching or correspond to the highest world standards.

We examine the methodological and practical issues related to the application of information technologies and space-based monitoring in ethnological examination of projects of Arctic industrial development. The necessity and prospects of using these technologies to assess the resource productivity of the territory are illustrated by the example of the project of the extraction of alluvial gold in the basin of the Mokrundya stream of the Srednekolymskii ulus (district) of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic. In particular, this is necessary for analyzing the distribution of dominant plant communities, determining the phytomass of pasture plants, stocks of wild plants, and reindeer grazing capacity, and for calculating the losses of the indigenous peoples of the North in the influence zone of the project. A geobotanical map of the study area is provided. It is also shown that the use of space-based monitoring in carrying out an ethnological examination of projects and determining the damage caused to the local population as a result of the impact on traditional land use practices (hunting, gathering wild plants, and reindeer husbandry) makes it possible to take an inventory of pasture lands of reindeer husbandry and reduce the cost of these projects in comparison with traditional methods (field surveys of the territory, and aerial imaging surveys). The possibilities of comparing interannual images can also provide insight into the dynamics of changes in the territory under the influence of anthropogenic activity and taking into account climatic transformations.

This article deals with the features in the morphology and dynamics of river beds and floodplains located in different natural zones and in different conditions of development of channel deformations. In preparing small-scale thematic maps (geo morphological, landscape and other maps), river valleys and their constituent river beds and floodplains are displayed in a simplified fashion using a common linear conventional sign. However, the procedure neglects the influence on the formation and development of riverbeds and floodplains from zonal processes associated with climatic features of river basins. For revealing this influence, an original small-scale map of riverbeds on a large territory of the East of the Eurasian continent covering the Asian part of Russia, Mongolia and China (Eastern transect), was compiled. The climatic zonality of both plains and highlands is widely manifested in this territory and the influence of zonality on intrazonal channel processes is emphasized. Of course, the leading factors are fluvial, but they are actively influenced by zonal natural factors. In the nival zone, they are represented by cryogenic processes, and in the semiarid zone by aeolian and halogen processes (salinization of floodplains). In the highlands, the role of horizontal zonality is less (it is manifested only in the semiarid highlands), but there the influence of azonal slope processes is intensified. Only in the humid zone, the nonfluvial factors of channel and floodplain processes are almost not manifested. The identified regularities are associated with the occurrence of dangerous emergency and extreme channel pro cesses which differ in their specificity in each natural zone. This should be taken into account when mapping them and using river resources.

This paper studies the changes in winter air temperatures in the Siberian sector of the northern hemisphere (60-120 ° E) over a long-term period of 1947-2017. A positive trend in air temperature (0,3 ° C/10 years) was revealed. An analysis of the magnitude and frequency of temperature anomalies also confirms an increase in surface temperature. The distribution of large positive and negative temperature anomalies was investigated. Centers of the largest recurrence of large negative anomalies were located in the south and south-west of the study area. A maximum number of negative anomalies were observed in December. Large positive anomalies (the highest frequency in January) were observed throughout the territory under consideration, and extremely large anomalies were found only at 20 % of the stations. The largest number of anomalies in the period of 1947-2017 was observed at the Irkutsk station. Based on the analysis of elementary circulation mechanisms (classification by B.L. Dzerdzeevsky), a relationship was established between the atmospheric circulation and the distribution of air temperature anomalies. It was concluded that the temperature regime in the winter months was formed under the influence of 26 elementary circulation mechanisms, combined into seven groups. The meridional circulation prevailed (75 % of cases). The elementary circulation mechanisms of the meridional northern circulation group were all characterized by the presence of blockings and intrusions of southern cyclones into the study area. In general, over the past two decades, an increase in duration of macrocir culation processes resulting in the inter-latitudinal air mass exchange has been revealed.

Using literature data and material from this author’s large-scale landscape-ecological research, an analysis is made of the impact of global anthropogenic warming over the last 100 years on the state of the forest geosystems of the Volga basin. In mixed forests, a nemoralization of the grass stand was revealed, with a decrease in the number of boreal species, and in oak forests - а massive desiccation of oak. It is found that on the southern border of the forest zone there occurs a partial replacement of forest-steppe vegetation with northern-steppe vegetation, this latter being substituted by dry-steppe vegetation. As a result, gray forest soils and common chernozems have persisted as northern relics. In the A1 soil horizon, the fractional composition of humus has changed, which indicates a change of the podzolic soil-forming process by the sodding process. At the main landscape line of the Russian Plain along the Oka and Volga valleys, a peculiar three-dimensional biogeographic ecotone was formed as a result of the transgression of different vegetation types: the taiga, nemoral forest and steppe types, along different biological ho rizons. Significant changes in the structure of hydrothermal niches of forest biogeocoenoses occurred on zonal ecotones of forests and steppes: the shift of dominants to an arid critical state of forests as well as the emergence of negative excesses and even “gaps” in the structure of niches. All these signs point to the beginning of massive structural and functional restructuring of forest geosystems in the Volga basin. Within the next 100 years, we can assume a certain “savanization” of mesophilic deciduous forests and their closure with a common mosaic complex of light forests, meadows and steppes of typical forest-steppe. This will occur against the background of instability of zonal boundaries.

This paper describes a study of the quality and living standard of the population of municipal districts of the Irkutsk oblast, the Republic of Buryatia, and the Zabaykalsky Krai in the context of a typed regional policy, whose activities are aimed at improving the human potential of the region as a whole with no account for the individual characteristics of each munici pal district. The region is characterized by significant intraregional imbalances in the socio-economic development of munici pal districts, which affect the living standards of the population, thereby allowing one to identify the problems and prospects of human development. It is shown that the successful development of human potential requires effective measures as part of the strategic programs of socio-economic development of the municipal districts of the Baikal region. Priority directions are proposed for increasing the human potential in seven groups of municipal districts, distinguished by geographical location and the ratio of urban and rural population (urbanized, low-urbanized, rural, northern, transboundary, suburban, and near-high way). Taking into account the territorial features of the region allows one to determine the human development vectors more accurately.

We considered the specifics of mapping natural population changes of the Irkutsk oblast. The Irkutsk oblast is a non-uniformly populated territory in its main part with a rare network of settlements (mainly of focal character) with the exception of the south along the Transsiberian Railway. We applied the dasymetric method by V.P. Semenov-Tyan-Shanskii adjusted for Siberian realities to identify local characteristics of the population distribution. The boundaries of the territories of areal settle ment were determined by the spot method with a buffer radius of 3 km from the borders of the settlement. Continuous lines of settlement formed by single or double chains of settlements along the transport routes, being the axes of economic activity, border upon the territories of areal settlement. A defining characteristic of this method is that the calculation of natural growth and further mapping was carried out not according to administrative units, but in the context of settlements and populated areas, ignoring the boundaries of municipalities. A cartographic study enables the identification of patterns and detailing of natural migration, taking into account the characteristics of the actual distribution of the population of the Irkutsk oblast.

The subject of the study is the quality of life of the indigenous peoples of the north of Siberia - Evenki and Keto, locally living in the rural settlements of Baikit and Sulomai of Evenki municipal district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The purpose of this study is to analyze the differentiation of the subjective perception of the quality of life by different layers of the population living in remote villages of the northern taiga zone of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The task is the application of the developed methodology for a comparative analysis of the quality of life of residents in remote villages of Siberia. The scientific novelty of this study lies in the application of the method of objective and sybjective assessment of the quality of life to the population group living compactly in harsh northern conditions and belonging to the category of indigenous peoples of the North.

The article presents the main trends of medical geographic researches in general. The experience of studying Siberia from the standpoint of medical geography at the V.B. Sochava Institute of Geography SB RAS (IG SB RAS) is considered. The main branch directions of medical-geographic researches of Institute are discussed: medical-geographical zoning, biogeochemical, studying of geography of diseases with natural foci and zooparasitological. It is noted that medical and geographical research was the foundation for the formation of such areas in the Institute as recreational-geographical and anthropoecological. It is spoken about transformation of ideas of medical-geographical researches over time for various reasons, both external and inter nal, about change of research focus. It is noted that the IG SB RAS a powerful research center for multi-faceted multidimen sional study of the population of Siberia and neighboring territories of the sector of medical geography, sector of geography of the population and other units, which operates at the present time.