The Turgay Depression, also known as Turgay Basin, Turgay Trough, and Turgay Hollow (; ), is a

structural basin A structural basin is a large-scale structural geology, structural formation of rock stratum, strata formed by tectonics, tectonic warping (Fold (geology), folding) of previously flat-lying strata into a syncline fold. They are geological dep ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

.Тургайская ложбина
''

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

'' in 30 vols. — Ch. ed.

A.M. Prokhorov Alexander Mikhailovich Prokhorov (born Alexander Michael Prochoroff, ; 11 July 1916 – 8 January 2002) was an Australian-born Russian physicist and researcher on lasers and masers, in the former Soviet Union. He shared the Nobel Prize in Ph ...

. - 3rd ed. - M. Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978. (in Russian)

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The depression is named after the Turgay River, which flows southwards along a stretch of the trough. The Lakes of the lower Turgay and Irgiz Nature Reserve is a

protected area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewood ...

located in the southern sector of the basin.

Geography

The Turgay Depression runs across the

Turgay Plateau The Turgay Plateau (, ''Torğai Üstırtı''; ) is a plateau in north-west Kazakhstan, central Asia. It lies 200–300 m above sea level. It extends some 630 km north–south and 300 km east–west. It is bisected by the Turgay Depress ...

in north-western Kazakhstan. It stretches from north to south and connects the

West Siberian Plain The West Siberian Plain () is a large plain that occupies the western portion of Siberia, between the Ural Mountains in the west and the Yenisei, Yenisei River in the east, and the Altai Mountains on the southeast. Much of the plain is poorly d ...

to the north with the Turan Depression. It has a length of and an average width between and with a maximum of . The Ubagan River, a right tributary of the

Tobol The Tobol (, ) is a river in Western Siberia (in Kazakhstan and Russia) and the main (left) tributary of the Irtysh. Its length is , and the area of its drainage basin is . History The Tobol River was one of the four important rivers of the S ...

flows along it in the northern direction. Among the rivers flowing southwards, the main ones are the Turgay with its tributaries Irgiz and Ulkayak, including the Saryozen through the Tauysh channel, as well as the Uly-Zhylanshyk. The lowest parts of the depression are occupied by numerous lakes, with mostly saline or bittern-salty waters, such as Kushmurun, Koybagar, Tyuntyugur, Aksuat, Teniz, Sarymoin, Sarykopa, Akkol, Barakkol and Shalkarteniz.Geographical position, geological structure and surface topography of the south of Western Siberia (in Russian)
/ref> Geologically the entire trough corresponds to the Turgai

tectonic subsidence Tectonic subsidence is the Subsidence, sinking of the Earth's Crust (geology), crust on a large scale, relative to crustal-scale features or the geoid. The movement of Plate tectonics, crustal plates and accommodation spaces produced by Fault (geol ...

of ancient alluvial and lacustrine deposits. The Turgay Plateau rises between the

Urals The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

and

Mugodzhar Hills Mugalzhar (), also known as Mugodzhar Hills or Mugodzhar Range (),
Geonames is a mountain range of moderate height in the Akt ...

in the west and the

Kazakh Steppe The Kazakh Steppe ( ), also known as the Great Steppe or Great Betpak-Dala, Dala ( ), is a vast region of open grassland in Central Asia, covering areas in northern Kazakhstan and adjacent areas of Russia. It lies east of the Pontic–Caspian step ...

in the east.Тургайское плато

Deposits of iron ore and other minerals occur in the basin, as well as significant oilfields in the southern part.Geologic structure, oil and gas potential of the Turgai Depression, and goals of regional geological and geophysical exploration
/ref> The northern part of the basin is characterized by

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without closed forests except near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the tropical and subtropica ...

and the southern part by

semi-desert A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of sem ...

, with the Barsuki Desert at the southern end near the

Aral Sea The Aral Sea () was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan to its north and Uzbekistan to its south, which began shrinking in the 1960s and had largely dried up into desert by the 2010s. It was in the Aktobe and Kyzylorda regions of Kazakhst ...

. In the spring and summer, large swathes of it are used for pasture.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Characteristics of strike-slip inversion structures of the Karatau fault and their petroleum geological significances in the south Turgay Basin, KazakhstanKushmurun Lake - BirdLife Data Zone
Structural basins Depressions of Kazakhstan

Geography

See also

References

External links