Karasor ( kk, Қарасор; russian: Карасор),
''Great Soviet Encyclopedia
The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) 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 ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...
'' in 30 vols. — Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov
Alexander Mikhailovich Prokhorov (born Alexander Michael Prochoroff, russian: Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Про́хоров; 11 July 1916 – 8 January 2002) was an Australian-born Soviet-Russian physicist known ...
. - 3rd ed. - M. Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978. (in Russian) is a
salt lake
A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per litre). ...
in
Karkaraly District
Karkaraly District ( kk, Қарқаралы ауданы, ) is a district of Karaganda Region in central Kazakhstan. The administrative center of the district is the town of Karkaraly. As of 2019, the district is home to a population of 36,025 peop ...
,
Karaganda Region
Karaganda Region ( kk, Qarağandy oblysy; russian: Карагандинская область, translit=Karagandinskaja oblast′), also spelled Qaraghandy Region, is a region of Kazakhstan. Its capital is Karaganda.
On 17 March 2022 it was an ...
,
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
.
Karasor is the largest lake in Karaganda Region. It is located to the north of
Karkaraly city. The nearest inhabited pace is
Koyandy village, close to the eastern lakeshore.
The mud at the bottom of the lake has medicinal properties.
Geography
Karasor is an
endorheic lake
An endorheic lake (also called a sink lake or terminal lake) is a collection of water within an endorheic basin, or sink, with no evident outlet. Endorheic lakes are generally saline as a result of being unable to get rid of solutes left in the l ...
in the central
Kazakh Uplands
The Kazakh Uplands ( kk, Сарыарқа, ''Saryarqa'' - "Yellow Ridge", russian: Казахский мелкосопочник, Kazakhskiy Melkosopochnik), also known as the Kazakh Hummocks, is a large peneplain formation extending throughout th ...
. It stretches from east to west to the north of the
Karkaraly Range
Karkaraly Range ( kk, Қарқаралы таулары; russian: Каркаралинские горы) is a range of mountains in Karkaraly District, Karaganda Region, Kazakhstan. and to the south of the
Ayr Mountains. It is the largest of the lakes at the bottom of a vast depression without drainage. Smaller lake
Katynkol is located to the SW of the southern end,
Saumalkol
Saumalkol ( kk, Саумалкөл; russian: Саумалколь) is a salt lake in Karkaraly District, Karaganda Region, Kazakhstan.
The lake is located to the northwest of Karkaraly city. The nearest inhabited place is Saumalkol railway stat ...
to the west, and
Balyktykol to the east. The shape of Karasor is sinuous, narrower in its central section. The bottom of the lake is mostly silt, with a smell of
hydrogen sulfide
Hydrogen sulfide is a chemical compound with the formula . It is a colorless chalcogen-hydride gas, and is poisonous, corrosive, and flammable, with trace amounts in ambient atmosphere having a characteristic foul odor of rotten eggs. The unde ...
. The lakeshores are complex, some stretches are clayey or pebbly, low and gently sloping, but in certain areas they are rocky, with cliffs reaching a height of . There are two little islands on the lake, Zhumyrtkaly and Araltabe.
Fourteen small rivers flow into Karasor, including the long
Taldy, as well as the Karkaralinka, Karsakpai, Karasu, Yesenaman, Barak and Kemer. All of them dry up in the summer. On average, the highest water level of the lake is in April and the lowest in November. Karasor usually freezes in November and thaws in late April or early May.
Google Earth
Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...
During periods of drought the shallow eastern part of the lake may dry up, turning into a
salt pan.
Flora and fauna
The land in the basin around Karasor includes plowed agricultural fields with
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
and
loam
Loam (in geology and soil science) is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > ), silt (particle size > ), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < ). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand–sil ...
soils. The vegetation of the lakeshore zone includes
spear grass,
wormwood,
Siberian peashrub and
fescue
''Festuca'' (fescue) is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the grass family Poaceae (subfamily Pooideae). They are evergreen or herbaceous perennial tufted grasses with a height range of and a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on every ...
.
[Jilili Abuduwaili, Gulnura Issanova, Galymzhan Saparov, ''Hydrology and Limnology of Central Asia''. pp. 177-181]News of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan
/ref>
Every year at Karasor there is a large concentration of about 5,000 common shelduck
The common shelduck (''Tadorna tadorna'') is a waterfowl species of the shelduck genus, ''Tadorna''. It is widespread and common in the Euro-Siberian region of the Palearctic, mainly breeding in temperate and wintering in subtropical regions; i ...
s during their moulting
In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is the manner in which an animal routinely casts off a part of its body (often, but not always, an outer ...
season.[Karasor Lake - BirdLife Data Zone](_blank)
/ref>
See also
*List of lakes of Kazakhstan
Excluding the northernmost districts, Kazakhstan consists of endorheic basins, where rivers flow into one of the numerous lakes. The most important drainage system is known as Yedisu, meaning "seven rivers" in Turkic languages. Below is the list ...
References
External links
*
Озера и реки Казахстана
(in Russian)
Lakes of Kazakhstan
Endorheic lakes of Asia
Karaganda Region
Kazakh Uplands
{{Kazakhstan-geo-stub