Karakul, Qarokul (
Kyrgyz for "black lake", replacing the older
Tajik name Siob; russian: Каракуль; tg, Қарокӯл) is a diameter lake
within a rather large
impact crater
An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact crater ...
.
It is located in the
Tajik National Park in the
Pamir Mountains in
Tajikistan
Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...
.
Impact crater
Karakul lies within a circular depression interpreted as an impact crater with a rim diameter of .
[ Some estimates give its age as relatively recent. Preliminarily, it was thought to be c. 25 Ma][ or less than 23 Ma. However, it may even be from the recent ]Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58[Earth Impact Database
The Earth Impact Database is a database of confirmed impact structures or craters on Earth. It was initiated in 1955 by the Dominion Observatory, Ottawa, under the direction of Carlyle S. Beals. Since 2001, it has been maintained as a not-for-pr ...](_blank)
(EID) also lists it as younger than 5 Ma.[ It is larger than the ]Eltanin impact
The Eltanin impact is thought to be an asteroid impact in the eastern part of the South Pacific Ocean that occurred around the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary approximately 2.51 ± 0.07 million years ago. The location was at the edge of th ...
(2.5 Ma), which has already been suggested as a contributor to the cooling and ice cap formation in the Northern Hemisphere during the late Pliocene.
The Karakul impact structure was first identified around 1987 through studies of imagery taken from space.[
]
Lake description
The lake/crater lies at an elevation of above mean sea level
Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance ( height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as '' orthometric heights''.
Th ...
. A peninsula projecting from the south shore and an island
An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...
off the north shore divide the lake into two basins: a smaller, relatively shallow eastern one, between deep, and a larger western one, deep. It is endorheic
An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...
(lacking a drainage outlet) and the water is brackish
Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estu ...
. There is a small village with the same name on the eastern shore of the lake.
The lake level was 35 m higher after the last ice age.
Environment
Although the lake lies within a national park, much of the surroundings are used as pasture
Pasture (from the Latin ''pastus'', past participle of ''pascere'', "to feed") is land used for grazing. Pasture lands in the narrow sense are enclosed tracts of farmland, grazed by domesticated livestock, such as horses, cattle, sheep, or sw ...
. The lake, with its islands, marsh
A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found a ...
es, wet meadow
A wet meadow is a type of wetland with soils that are Solubility, saturated for part or all of the growing season. Debate exists whether a wet meadow is a type of marsh or a completely separate type of wetland. Wet prairies and wet savannas are hyd ...
s, peat
Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficient ...
bogs, and pebbly and sand
Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class o ...
y plain
In geography, a plain is a flat expanse of land that generally does not change much in elevation, and is primarily treeless. Plains occur as lowlands along valleys or at the base of mountains, as coastal plains, and as plateaus or uplands ...
s, has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA) because it supports significant numbers of the populations of various bird species, either as residents, or as breeding or passage migrants.
These species include bar-headed geese, ruddy shelducks, common merganser
The common merganser (North American) or goosander (Eurasian) (''Mergus merganser'') is a large seaduck of rivers and lakes in forested areas of Europe, Asia, and North America. The common merganser eats mainly fish. It nests in holes in trees.
...
s, saker falcon
The saker falcon (''Falco cherrug'') is a large species of falcon. This species breeds from central Europe eastwards across the Palearctic to Manchuria. It is mainly migratory except in the southernmost parts of its range, wintering in Ethiopia ...
s, Himalayan vulture
The Himalayan vulture (''Gyps himalayensis'') or Himalayan griffon vulture is an Old World vulture native to the Himalayas and the adjoining Tibetan Plateau. It is one of the two largest Old World vultures and true raptors. It is listed as Near T ...
s, lesser sand plover
The lesser sand plover (''Charadrius mongolus'') is a small wader in the plover family of birds. The spelling is commonly given as lesser sand-plover, but the official British Ornithologists' Union spelling is "lesser sand plover". The genus ...
s, brown-headed gull
The brown-headed gull (''Chroicocephalus brunnicephalus'') is a small gull which breeds in the high plateaus of central Asia from Tajikistan to Ordos in Inner Mongolia. It is migratory, wintering on the coasts and large inland lakes of the India ...
s, Tibetan sandgrouse
The Tibetan sandgrouse (''Syrrhaptes tibetanus'') is a large bird in the sandgrouse family. The genus name ''Syrrhaptes'' is from Ancient Greek ''surrhaptos'', "sewn together" (the feathered toes of this sandgrouse are fused together) and ''tib ...
, yellow-billed chough
The Alpine chough (), or yellow-billed chough (''Pyrrhocorax graculus'') is a bird in the crow family, one of only two species in the genus '' Pyrrhocorax''. Its two subspecies breed in high mountains from Spain eastwards through southern Europ ...
s, Himalayan rubythroats, white-winged redstarts, white-winged snowfinch
The white-winged snowfinch (''Montifringilla nivalis''), or snowfinch, is a small passerine bird. Despite its name, it is a sparrow rather than a true finch.
Taxonomy
In 1760 the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson included a description o ...
es, rufous-streaked accentors, brown accentors, black-headed mountain finches and Caucasian great rosefinches. The lake's islands are the main places where waterbirds rest and nest.
The only fish in the lake are ''Nemacheilus
''Nemacheilus'' is a genus of stone loaches native to Asia.
Species
There are currently 44 recognized species in this genus:
* '' Nemacheilus anguilla'' Annandale, 1919 (eel loach)
* '' Nemacheilus arenicolus'' Kottelat, 1998
* '' Nemacheil ...
''.
Events
Higher than Lake Titicaca
Lake Titicaca (; es, Lago Titicaca ; qu, Titiqaqa Qucha) is a large freshwater lake in the Andes mountains on the border of Bolivia and Peru. It is often called the highest navigable lake in the world. By volume of water and by surface area, i ...
, Karakul hosted the Roof of the World Regatta from 2014 to 2017. This replaced the Alpine Bank Dillon Open, held on the Dillon Reservoir in Colorado, United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
as the highest sailing regatta in the world.
References
{{Impact cratering on Earth
Lakes of Tajikistan
Impact craters of Tajikistan
Impact crater lakes
Neogene impact craters
Pliocene Asia
Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region
Important Bird Areas of Tajikistan
Ramsar sites in Tajikistan