New data of Scandinavian geologists, geographers and biologists on the absence of Ice Sheet during the Late Glacial Maximum in different areas of Scandinavia are represented in the article. These data have been presented at the 31st Nordic Geological Winter Meeting (January 8-10 2014, Lund, Sweden) and collected in modern articles of Scandinavian scientists. Aggregation of these data shows that Scandinavia has not been covered by single Ice Sheet during Late Weichselian time. Author proposes to spread his own concept concerning passive Weichselian glacierisation of Northern Eurasia to Scandinavia.

The large volcanic eruption occurred in the Northern part of the Tolbachinsky Dol (the central part of the Kamchatka Peninsula) in 2012-2013. As a result of the 10 months' volcanic eruption, the nature of the area has changed dramatically. The lava flows had overlapped 36 km² of the territory of nature park. The invasion of the lava flows into the forest zone is a rare event in the Kamchatka Peninsula, so the process of contact of the great mass of incandescent material and live plants was not actually even been described, specifics of its consequences is almost unknown. During this invasion there was a threat of forest fires (the media at the beginning of December 2012 repeatedly given such reports); the article deals with the reality of this threat. Another aspect of the appearance of the lava flows is the transformation of the productive forest land of vast territories into desolate badlands for many centuries and even millennia. The article briefly describes the variety of vegetation of areas covered with lava. Burial of huge amount of trees and plant mass by lava (an assessment of its volume is given in the article for the first time) and its thermal effects caused some environmental impacts; some of them are considered briefly.

The statistical analysis of the ensemble of vector space-time fields of sea level fluctuation gradients by the data of satellite altimeter measurements in the north part of Atlantic Ocean (5°S-70°N and 20°E-80°W) with discreteness of 1 day (1993-2013 years) in the grid points with discreteness interval 0.25° was completed. The space inhomogeneity of sea level gradient fields was shown which is driven by the system of currents and ocean divergence (convergence) zones, energy-active zones of ocean-atmosphere interaction and centre of atmospheric action. The interpretation of level gradient fields in terms of eddy structures of gradient current velocity was offered; these structures are characterized by the rotor and divergence of vector time-space fields. Their averages, variances and covariance functions were estimated.

Hydrothermokarst, the process of formation and infilling of cavities with ascending thermal solutions, is of great importance for the formation of lead, zinc, mercury, antimony, fluorite, celestite and some other mineral deposits. It is necessary to determine the karst nature of this type of mineralization as early as possible for it has specific localization criteria including hydrodynamic factor.

The goal of the research is to identify main types of large and the largest cities of Russia taking into account particularities of their structure and economic performance. The objects of the research are Russian cities - administrative centers of regions and autonomous districts of Russian Federation, as well as other Russian cities with population exceeding 100 thousand citizens. The research was done using statistical data reflecting the structure of employment by sectors of cities' economy. To build up a typology the cluster analysis method, based on the results of the principal components analysis, was used. The research has proved that mostly significant factors influencing the structure of employment of Russian cities are the factors not depending on human activity: natural resources endowment and geographical location. Next factors after them are development of manufacturing sector and agglomeration effects. Detailed analysis of factors and results of social and economic development of cities allow applying a system approach to building up their typology in post-soviet period, the typology still missing in academic literature.

The process of concentration of population, overloading of urban infrastructure today is a typical problem for the majority of the CIS countries, particularly clearly felt in their capitals. The article discusses the role of Baku agglomeration in Azerbaijan, the specificity of its trends, the latest changes in the functional and territorial structure of Absheron economic region, a suburb of the capital, including trends of spatial shifts, industry, commerce, logistics, office functions and the formation of new development centers.