Kuznetsk Depression (, ''Kuznetskaya kotlovina'') is located among mountains of South-Central

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

, including:

Kuznetsk Alatau Kuznetsk Alatau () is a mountain range in southern Siberia, Russia. The range rises in the Altai-Sayan region of the South Siberian Mountains, northwest of Mongolia. The Siberian Railway skirts the northern limit of the range. Geography ...

to the Northeast, Salair Ridge to the Southwest, and Mountainous Shoria to the South. It is within

Kemerovo Oblast Kemerovo Oblast (, ), also known as Kuzbass (, ), after the Kuznetsk Basin, is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Kemerovo is the administrative center and largest city of the oblast. Kemerovo Oblast is one of Rus ...

Geography

The depression has

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

s up to ,. It has an area of 70,000 km², with a length of and width of . It is split by a network of river valleys. The major rivers are the

Tom River The Tom (, ; ; ) is a river in Russia, a right tributary of the Ob in central Siberia. Its watershed lies within the Republic of Khakassia, Kemerovo Oblast, and Tomsk Oblast.

and Inya River, with other tributaries of

Ob River The Ob (; ) is a major river in Russia. It is in western Siberia, and with its tributary the Irtysh forms the world's seventh-longest river system, at . The Ob forms at the confluence of the Biya and Katun which have their origins in the Alta ...

. The central section has several

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era is the Era (geology), era of Earth's Geologic time scale, geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Period (geology), Periods. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian r ...

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

mountain ridges with heights of . They include Taradanov's Ridge, Saltymakov's Ridge, and the Karakan Mountains.

Economy

The Kuznetsk Depression contains the famous

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

-mining

Kuznetsk Basin The Kuznetsk Basin (, Кузбасс; often abbreviated as Kuzbass or Kuzbas) in southwestern Siberia, Russia, is one of the largest coal mining areas in Russia, covering an area of around . It lies in the Kuznetsk Depression between Tomsk and ...

. The main cities in it are

Kemerovo Kemerovo ( rus, Ке́мерово, p=ˈkʲemʲɪrəvə) is an industrial types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Kemerovo Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Iskitimka River, Iskitimka and Tom ...

Novokuznetsk Novokuznetsk (, , ; )Чиспияков Э. Ф. (1992) ''Учебник шорского языка''. Кемеровское книжное издательство. p. 27. is a city in Kemerovo Oblast (Kuzbass) in southwestern Siberia, Russia ...

, and

Prokopyevsk Prokopyevsk ( rus, Прокопьевск, p=prɐˈkopʲjɪfsk) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia. Population: History It was founded in 1918 as the settlement of Prokopyevsky () from the existing vill ...

References

Depressions of Russia Landforms of Kemerovo Oblast Geography of Central Asia {{Siberia-geo-stub

Geography

Economy

See also

References