One of the major observations during marine interdisciplinary expeditions in 2011 and 2012 on the RV Akademik M.A. Lavrentyev and RV Viktor Buinitskii was the occurrence of a large number of ice scours in the East Siberian Arctic shelf (Lobkovsky et al. 2013). The scours vary in size, depth, spatial arrangement and age of generation. Maximum water depth for sea-ice ploughing of the shallow continental shelf depends on sea-ice ridge keel depth (Ogorodov 2011). Linear and curvilinear scours on the floor of the eastern Laptev Sea shelf at water depths ≤40 m are interpreted here as ploughmarks generated by sea-ice pressure ridges (Fig. 1). Ice ploughmarks in the Laptev Sea were first discovered in 1970 during the East Siberian Arctic shelf transect by US Navy nuclear submarine USS Queenfish (McLaren 2008).