The Udokan Range () is a mountain range in

Sakha Republic Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia, and the largest federal subject of Russia by area. It is located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of one million ...

(Yakutia) and

Zabaykalsky Krai Zabaykalsky Krai is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (a krai), located in the Russian Far East. Its administrative center is Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai, Chita. As of the Russian Census (2010), 2010 Census, the population was ...

Russian Federation Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. The nearest town is Chara.

Google Earth Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...

There is

copper mining Copper extraction is the multi-stage process of obtaining copper from list of copper ores, its ores. The conversion of copper ores consists of a series of physical, chemical, and electrochemical processes. Methods have evolved and vary with coun ...

in the range at the

Udokan mine The Udokan mine is a large mining, copper mine located in the south of Russia in Zabaykalsky Krai, around 30 km south of the town of Novaya Chara on the Baikal Amur Mainline. The mine is part of the Udokan Ore Region that includes the Udokan ...

, part of the Udokan Ore Region that includes the Kalar and Kodar ranges.Udokan Ore Region
/ ''

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. - 3rd ed. - M. Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978. A stretch of the

Baikal–Amur Mainline The Baikal–Amur Mainline (, , , ) is a broad-gauge railway line in Russia. Traversing Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, the -long BAM runs about 610 to 770 km (380 to 480 miles) north of and parallel to the Trans-Siberian Railway. ...

passes through the range following the valley of the Khani river.

History

The Udokan was first described and mapped in 1857 by A.F. Usoltsev, Lieutenant of the

Corps of Military Topographers of the Russian Imperial Army The Corps of Military Topographers of the Russian Imperial Army was a branch of the Imperial Russian Army with a long history dating back to the early 18th century. History The Corps of Military Topographers was established in 1822 in order to c ...

. Obruchev V. A.,
Шварц на юго-востоке Сибири (Schwartz in the southeast of Siberia)
(in Russian) On 5 July 1965 an

Aeroflot PJSC AeroflotRussian Airlines (, ), commonly known as Aeroflot ( or ; , , ), is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Russia. Aeroflot is headquartered in the Central Administrative Okrug, Moscow, with its hub being Sheremetyevo Interna ...

Antonov An-2R The Antonov An-2 ( USAF/DoD reporting name Type 22, NATO reporting name Colt) is a Soviet mass-produced single-engine biplane utility/agricultural aircraft designed and manufactured by the Antonov Design Bureau beginning in 1947. Its durability ...

struck a mountain of the Udokan Range on a flight between Ust-Nyukzha and Chara. The aircraft encountered poor weather with low clouds and rain while flying along the Khani river valley. The plane struck the side of a mountain of the range at . The wreckage was found on 16 July 1969. There were three fatalities. The An-2 had been operating a

Tynda Tynda () is a town in Amur Oblast, Russia, located northwest of Blagoveshchensk. It is an important railway junction, informally referred to as the capital of the Baikal-Amur Mainline. Its population has declined sharply in recent years: Etymo ...

–Ust-

Nyukzha The Nyukzha () is a river in Amur Oblast and Transbaikalia, East Siberia, Russian Federation. It is the second largest tributary of the Olyokma river in terms of length and area of its basin. The Nyukzha is long and has a drainage basin of . Th ...

–Chara cargo service.Accident description for CCCP-79910 - Aviation Safety Network
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Geography

The Udokan Range rises in the central area of the

Stanovoy Highlands The Stanovoy Highlands () or Stanovoy Uplands is a mountain range in the Transbaikal region of Siberia, Russia. Geography The Stanovoy Highlands are a mountainous area between the Patom Highlands to the north and the Vitim Plateau to the south. ...

, to the south of the upper course of the Chara, a left tributary of the

Olyokma The Olyokma (, , ; , ) is a tributary of the Lena in eastern Siberia. The river gives its name to the Olyokma-Chara Plateau, located to the west of its western bank. History In the summer of 1631, Russian pioneer Pyotr Beketov entered the Oly ...

. It stretches from SW to NE for roughly from the middle northern slopes of the

Kalar Range The Kalar Range () is a mountain range in Zabaykalsky Krai and the NW end of Amur Oblast, Russian Federation. The highest point of the range is high Skalisty Golets. Google Earth The range is part of the Udokan Ore Region that includes the Kod ...

to the river valley of the

, a right tributary of the

Lena Lena or LENA may refer to: Places * Léna Department, a department of Houet Province in Burkina Faso * Lena, Manitoba, an unincorporated community located in Killarney-Turtle Mountain municipality in Manitoba, Canada * Lena, Norway, a village in ...

. To the north it borders with the

Olyokma-Chara Plateau The Olyokma-Chara Plateau (; ) is a mountainous area in the Sakha Republic and Irkutsk Oblast, Far Eastern Federal District, Russia.Google Earth A small section is in Kalarsky District, northernmost Zabaykalsky Krai. Charoite, a rare mineral, ...

—in the upper reaches of the Chara river. To the south the range is bound by the valley of the Khani river, a left tributary of the Olyokma. The highest summit is a high unnamed

ultra prominent peak An ultra-prominent peak, or ultra for short, is a mountain summit with a topographic prominence of or more; it is also called a P1500. The prominence of a peak is the minimum height of climb to the summit on any route from a higher peak, or fro ...

.Udokan
/ ''

:'' 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. The range is part of the

Baikal Rift Zone The Baikal Rift Zone is a series of continental rifts centered beneath Lake Baikal in southeastern Russia. Current strain in the rifts tends to be extending with some shear movement. A series of basins form along the zone for more than , creatin ...

and displays signs of

volcanic A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

relief at its southwestern end, in the area where it merges with the Kalar Range.

Hydrography

A number of rivers have their sources in the range, including the Tokko and the Kalar. There are also glacial landforms and sediments that are remnants of

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate be ...

Flora

The lower slopes of the range are mainly covered by

larch Larches are deciduous conifers in the genus ''Larix'', of the family Pinaceae (subfamily Laricoideae). Growing from tall, they are native to the cooler regions of the northern hemisphere, where they are found in lowland forests in the high la ...

taiga Taiga or tayga ( ; , ), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. In North A ...

, with pre-alpine woodland,

mountain tundra Alpine tundra is a type of natural region or biome that does not contain trees because it is at high elevation, with an associated harsh climate. As the latitude of a location approaches the poles, the threshold elevation for alpine tundra gets ...

and bare rocky summits ''(golets)'' at higher elevations.

References

Stanovoy Highlands Mountain ranges of Russia Mountain ranges of the Sakha Republic Mountains of Zabaykalsky Krai {{SakhaRepublic-geo-stub bg:Удокан pl:Udokan

History

Geography

Hydrography

Flora

See also

References