ИСТИНА

It has been shown by the methods of biochemistry, nuclear magnetic resonance, and isotope geochemistry that the proportions of lignin phenols, n-alkanes, amino sugars may be used as molecular traces of paleovegetation and paleobiota. The information role of biomarker has been tested at the reconstruction of paleovegetation in the Caucasus and Tien Shan, an upward shift of the forest boundary has been recorded on the Northern Caucasus; the hypothesis about the steppe period of landscape development in the Tien Shan mountain valleys during the middle Holocene has been confirmed, and molecular traces of tropical flora have been revealed in the buried soils of Pleistocene age in Crimea, the earliest stage of the allochthonous carbonate accumulation in the area dated to approximately 20 ka cal BP was established in the Lesser Caucasus. The representativeness of information has been increased using the isotope analysis (δ13C); a new parameteres—the composition of lignin phenols and n-alkanes —have been introduced in the existed system of biomarkers.