Walking around islands on Lake Alakol.

“Nature encourages no looseness, pardons no errors”

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Islands of Lake Alakol.

The island of Kishkine Araltobe (Small Stone) is located in the central, eastern part of Lake Alakol is located in the Alakol district of the Zhetysu region and in the Urdzhar region of the East Kazakhstan region. The length of the island is 2594 meters, the largest width in the northern part is 982 meters.
The area of the island is 1.65 square kilometers, the perimeter is 6233.51 meters. The absolute height of the island is located in the southwestern part and is 501.4 meters above sea level. In the northern part of the island, the height reaches 355.8 meters above sea level.
This is the highest rocky island, rising 150 meters above the lake, composed of gray green tuffs, siltstones and psammophyte tuffs, covered with a small thickness of sedimentary rocks (Kazanskaya, 1965). Most of the island is occupied by a rocky hill, divided by a canyon valley into two parts.
The southern and southwestern sides are sheer cliffs with ledges, abruptly dropping into the water. The eastern and northern sides of the island are gently sloping, with small valleys overgrown with sparse semi-desert vegetation.
Coastal strip of rubble and pebbles. Soils. On floodplain terraces of rivers and lakes, under meadow-tugai vegetation, alluvial-meadow soils are common, and meadow-marsh soils are developed along lake depressions and swamps with sedge-reed associations.
Takyrs and takyr-like soils are found in places where vegetation is distributed. On the island territories of the reserve, brown desert underdeveloped soils are formed. Meadow-serozem soils under ephemeral-wormwood vegetation are widespread near the reserve.
Geographical coordinates of island of Kishkine-Araltobe: N46°06'31.49" E81°52'58.78"

Authority:
Berezovikov Nikolay Nikolaevich, candidate of biological sciences.

Photos by
Alexander Petrov.