KAZAKHSTAN

Adventure Tours

Tuzbair

Mysterious MANGYSTAU West Kazakhstan

To the shores of the Tethys Ocean

WHAT TO DO IN MANGYSTAU REGION

Mangyshlak plateau is adjacent to the Peninsula plateau, which is located on the Peninsula of the Eastern coast of the Caspian sea.

In addition to the territory of the Mangyshlak peninsula, the Mangystau region occupies a significant part of the Ustyurt plateau and the southern part of the Caspian lowland - the Buzachi peninsula. This amounts to more than 16 million hectares of natural deserts and semi-deserts. There are several landscape zones:

The coastal strip of the Caspian Sea with an abundance of canyons and ravines;
Karatau massif;
Cretaceous and limestone blocks (cliffs) and remnant mountains;
sand massifs;
clay and saline bottoms of dry lakes;
troughs.

Trees and shrubs are very rare. On the Mangyshlak Peninsula, the Earth is bare to the bone, so it is an excellent geological training ground for the study of sedimentary rocks.

The climate of the region is marked by sharp continental. Winters are harsh, windy and with little snow. Spring is short, usually dry and windy. Summer is hot, cloudless and long. Autumn is long, mostly warm. The Caspian Sea, which surrounds the Mangyshlak Peninsula on three sides, affects only a narrow coastal strip. There is a slight increase in humidity, a decrease in air temperature in summer and an increase in winter, as well as a decrease in annual and daily amplitudes of temperature fluctuations. In other regions of the region, the average annual air temperature is about 10.5 - 11.5 degrees, the absolute annual minimum temperature is 26 - 34 degrees, a maximum of 43 - 45 degrees, and surface heating of soils reaches 60-70 degrees. The hottest period is from mid-July to mid-August. Autumn frosts begin in late October, spring frosts end in early April.

Precipitation is very insignificant. The average annual number is from 140-160 millimeters in the northern part and up to 90-120 millimeters in the south. Most precipitation falls over the mountainous part of the peninsula. The prevailing rainfall in the north of the region is in spring and summer, and in the southern part - in winter and spring. The rains at the end of spring and summer are stormy. In the mountainous part, heavy rains can form mudflows.

Snow cover on Mangyshlak and Ustyurt is small (3-7 centimeters), unstable and not continuous everywhere. As a result of high temperatures, low rainfall and almost constantly windy weather, evaporation exceeds the precipitation by 10-15 times, and air saturation with moisture is only 40-60%.

Ridges and hills Caspian - Mangyshlak plateau and Tuarkir. The broad structure of the Mangyshlak plateau and Tuarkari is part of the platform, the formation of which is associated with local elevations of the base of the Turan plate.
Rock outcrop in the center of the Mangyshlak plateau, forming the Karatau mountains and to the South-East of it, where lay down a hill Kyzylkiya in the system Tuarkir. Mangyshlak plateau, consist of Western Karatau, Eastern Karatau and Karatauchik.
To the North and South of the Western Karatau mountains are ridges, called North and South Aktau - White mountains; Karatau mountains - black mountains. In the valleys between Karatau and Aktau are exposed layers of Sandstone with spherical nodules with a diameter of 1.5 - 2 meters (sometimes up to 3 meters and more).
As a result of weathering of Sandstone and sand nodules appeared on the surface to form clusters in the form of rows of giant balls, sometimes hollow inside. Outside fold of the Mangyshlak plateau is a low (150 - 175 m) limestone plateau with deep saline endorheic depressions in the South (including a huge Karagiye depression -132 m).
In the South Mangyshlak discovered large deposits of oil (Jetibay, Uzen). From the North it joins the Mangyshlak Peninsula Buzachi with sand, clay plains and salt marshes. Mangyshlak refers to the Northern desert zone, representing a space clayey, stony, sandy and saline deserts.