Tours Hollow Karynzharyk in Ustyrt reserve.

“Nature will tell you a direct lie if she can” 

Charles Darwin.

Destinations Travel tours Mangyshlak.

The Karynzharyk depression is located in the southeastern part of the Mangistau region, on the territory of the Ustyurt natural reserve, 24.4 kilometers east of the Ak-Kuduk village and 72.2 kilometers east of the Basgurly depression in the Karakiya district in the southeast of the Mangistau region.
The Karynzharyk depression is located in the northwest of the Ustyurt plateau and in the west of the Western Ustyurt cliff, in the east to the depression it borders the Muzbel ridge, and the Karynzharyk sands stretch from the west from south to north.
In the southern part of the depression there are five remnant mountains, the northernmost of them is 116.7 meters above sea level, a little to the south - the western one is 83 meters above sea level, the eastern one is 79.7 meters above sea level.
The next one is the southwestern outlier with a height of 104.7 meters above sea level and the southernmost outlier with a height of 61.4 meters above sea level. The depression reaches a mark of 67.3 meters below sea level and 116 meters below the edge of the plateau, which is typical for the surf zone of the sea coast of the modern Caspian.
The depression stretches from southwest to northeast for 87 kilometers in the sublatitudinal direction, with an average width of 13.3 kilometers in the southern part, 9.5 kilometers in the central part, and 17.1 kilometers in the northern part.
The eastern side of the depression is steep, steep, chink with a height of 104 to 197 meters above sea level, the western one is gentle (Karynzharyk sands). Two gas-bearing structures (Kansu and South Kansu) were identified in the center of the depression.
The Karynzharyk depression serves as a section between the Ustyurt plateau and the Mangyshlak peninsula. This is a large trough formed by a mantle of highly saline sandy-clayey deposits of the Caspian transgressions.
The ancient and modern processing of marine sediments has led to the formation on its surface of a narrow massif of hilly-ridge sands, stretching from north to south for more than 100 kilometers. The bottom of the depression is in places represented by ridge-hollow sandy forms, in places it is occupied by vast massifs of salt marshes and solonetz soils.
In addition, there are saline-sandy formations characteristic of Western Kazakhstan - salty mud, takyrs and khaki. The transition from them to the lakes is the sors, the largest of which on the territory of the reserve is Kenderli-sor.
They sometimes occupy areas of hundreds of hectares and represent areas of accumulation of liquid and semi-liquid saline mud, which extends to a depth of more than ten meters. In the northern part of the Karynzharyk depression, on the territory of the Ustyurt reserve, there is a kind of anticlinal uplift - Mount Karamaya, 209.8 meters above sea level and about 17.3 kilometers long.
From time to time, the depressions are filled with rainwater after drying out, which remains extensive salt marshes. On the Ustyurt plateau, by the epoch under consideration, there were already deep depressions, to which are confined to the Upper Pliocene lacustrine, alluvial-proluvial, deluvial-proluvial, and sometimes marine deposits: mixed-grained sands, sandstones, pebbles, conglomerates, sandy loam and clay, occasionally limestone.
Their thickness is different, in the Karanzharyk depression it reaches 100 meters. Along the entire length from the east along the depression, there are chinks, which were chosen by the mouflons.
Geographic coordinates of the Karynzharyk depression: N42 ° 58'45.24 "E54 ° 25'05.27"

Authority:
 Plahov Konstantin. Reserves of Central Asia and Kazakhstan (under R.V.Jashchenko general edition. Protected natural territories of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, release 1 - Tetis, Almaty, 2006.352 p.

Photos
Alexander Petrov.