Kopetdag Chuli Turkmenistan
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The Köpet Dag, Kopet Dagh, or Koppeh Dagh ( tk, Köpetdag; fa, کپه‌داغ), also known as the Turkmen-Khorasan Mountain Range, is a mountain range on the border between Turkmenistan and Iran that extends about along the border southeast of the Caspian Sea, stretching northwest-southeast from near the Caspian Sea in the northwest to the
Harirud The Hari River ( or prs, هری رود, translit=Harī Rōd; ps, د هري سیند) or Herat River is a river flowing from the mountains of central Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, where it forms the Tejend oasis and disappears in the Karakum Des ...
River in the southeast. In the southwest it borders on the parallel eastern endings of the Alborz mountains being together part of the much larger Alpide belt. The highest peak of the range in Turkmenistan is the Mount Rizeh (Kuh-e Rizeh), located at the southwest of the capital Ashgabat and stands at . The highest Iranian summit is Mount Quchan (Kuh-e Quchan) with .


Etymology

Vambery conjectured that ''köpet'' originates from the Turkmen language where "köp" means "a lot" or "many" and the word "dag" means "mountain" or "peak". He thus translated Köpetdag as "Many mountains (peaks)". He and others noted that in Persian ''koppeh'' means "pile" or "heap", and the word ''dag'' or ''dagh'' means "mountain" in Turkic. Thus, a second conjecture held that the Persian version of ''Kopet Dagh'' or ''Koppeh Dagh'' could be defined as "the mountain that is piled or heaped" and therefore the words could mean "piled or hilly mountains" or "low hills" in general. Ataniyazov, however, rejects those hypotheses:
The word ''kopet'' is probably derived from the Persian word ''kuhibet'' (''kuh'' - "dag", ''bet'' - "bad") and means "bad mountain". No name was given to the entirety of this range, but a name was given to each part of it...According to Murzayev, the section of this mountain range west of Ashgabat was called Kopetdag (Murzayev. SA, p. 248). The most common name for this part of the range was ''Taňrigargan'' ("God bless you")...the Persians called it ''Kupet''...(in Persian this name is wah, i.e., it is spelled with a long drawn-out Ku: pet and Ku: bet). For the most part, it was very dangerous to cross, because of the wind and the cold. That is why the Persians call the mountain range "bad mountain" and the Turkmens call it "God bless you". In the second half of the last century, Russian scholars who studied in the Kopetdag passed the name onto maps as the name of the entire range and spread it to the public. Many of the elders living in the foothills of the Kopetdag do not know the name Kopetdag...Vambery conjectures that the word ''kopet'' is derived from the words ''kubbet'', ''kuppe'' (perhaps a lot — S.A.)...Pomerantsev also interprets the name as "multi-mountain" (mountain range), while the locals consider it part of the mythical Cape Mountain in Kopet, but these interpretations are incorrect.


Geology

Geologically, the Kopet Dag Range is made chiefly of Lower Cretaceous sedimentary rocks with a smaller portion of Jurassic rocks in the southeastern parts. The mountains were formed in the Miocene and the Pliocene during the Alpine orogeny. As the Tethys Sea was closed and the Arabian Plate collided with the Iranian Plate and was pushed against it and with the clockwise movement of the Eurasian Plate towards the Iranian Plate and their final collision, the Iranian Plate was pressed against the Turan Platform. This collision folded the entire rocks that had been deposited in this geosyncline or basin from the Jurassic to the Miocene and formed the Kopet Dag Mountains.


Topography

The Kopet Dag Range is a region characterized by foothills, dry and sandy slopes, mountain plateaus, and steep ravines. The Kopet Dag is undergoing tectonic transformation, and is subject to severe earthquakes. Earthquakes exceeding seven on the Richter scale have been recorded. The most western foothills of the Kopetdag mountains are known as the 'Kürendag Ridge'.


Archaeology

There is archaeological evidence of settlement in the well-watered northern foothills of the Kopet Dag during the Neolithic period. This region is dotted with the multi-period hallmarks characteristic of the ancient Near East, similar to those southwest of the Kopet Dag in the Gorgan Plain in Iran. At Jeitun (or Djeitun), mud brick houses were first occupied c. 6000 BC (see BMAC origins). Also the foothills of the Kopet-Dag near Ashgabat are the site of the remains of the ancient Parthian city of Nisa (Nessa, Nusaý).


Ski resort

This mountain range has a ski resort, officially opened by the former president of Turkmenistan,
Saparmurat Niyazov Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov; tk, Saparmyrat Ataýewiç Nyýazow, in Cyrillic: Сапармырат Атаевич Ныязов (19 February 1940 – 21 December 2006), also known as Turkmenbashi, was a Turkmen politician who rule ...
. Despite the lack of snow in the Kopet Dag mountains, Niyazov was determined to build a major resort there.Ski Turkmenistan!
Google Earth Community, accessed on February 9, 2017.


Plants and animals

The woodlands of the region are home to many fruit trees, shrubs, and vines that have proved valuable for human use and selective breeding, including pomegranate (''Punica granatum''), wild grapes ''
Vitis sylvestris ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, is a species of flowering plant, native to the Mediterranean region, Central Europe, and southwestern Asia, from Morocco and Portugal north to southern Germany and east to northern Iran. There are curr ...
'', fig (''Ficus carica''), wild apple (''
Malus turkmenorum ''Malus sieversii'' is a wild apple native to the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan. It has recently been shown to be the primary ancestor of most cultivars of the domesticated apple (''Malus domestica''). It was first described as ...
''), wild pear (''
Pyrus boissieriana ''Pyrus boissieriana'', the Boissier pear and telka, is a species of ''Pyrus'' (pear) native to the Kopet Dag region on the Turkmenistan and Iranian border. In its native locales it is cultivated as a rootstock for domestic pears. ''Pyrus boiss ...
''), wild cherries ('' Prunus spp.'', also called ''Cerasus microcarpa, C. erythrocarpa, C. blinovskii''), wild prune (''
Prunus divaricata __NOTOC__ ''Prunus cerasifera'' is a species of plum known by the common names cherry plum and myrobalan plum.almonds The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', Synonym (taxonomy)#Botany, syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree native to Iran and surrounding countries, including the Levant. The almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of th ...
(''Amygdalus communis''=''Prunus dulcis'', and ''A. scoparia''=''Prunus scoparia''), and hawthorns ( ''Crataegus'' spp.).


See also

*
1929 Koppeh Dagh earthquake The 1929 Kopet Dag earthquake (also called the 1929 Koppeh Dagh earthquake) took place at 15:37 UTC on 1 May with a moment magnitude of 7.2 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (''Violent''). It occurred in the Kopet Dag area of Iran and caus ...


References

{{Authority control Mountain ranges of Iran Mountain ranges of Turkmenistan Ski areas and resorts in Turkmenistan Landforms of Razavi Khorasan Province Landforms of North Khorasan Province