Karakul, Qarokul (

Kyrgyz Kyrgyz, Kirghiz or Kyrgyzstani may refer to: * Someone or something related to Kyrgyzstan *Kyrgyz people *Kyrgyz national games *Kyrgyz language *Kyrgyz culture *Kyrgyz cuisine *Yenisei Kirghiz *The Fuyü Gïrgïs language in Northeastern China ...

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 Tajik National Park ( tg, Боғи миллии Тоҷикистон; russian: Таджикский национальный парк) is a national park and nature reserve in eastern Tajikistan. It was established in 1992 and expanded in 2001 to ...

in the

Pamir Mountains The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range between Central Asia and Pakistan. It is located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya mountain ranges. They are among the wor ...

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 2.58Earth Impact Database (EID) also lists it as younger than 5 Ma. It is larger than the Eltanin impact (2.5 Ma), which has already been suggested as a contributor to the cooling and

ice cap In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than of land area (usually covering a highland area). Larger ice masses covering more than are termed ice sheets. Description Ice caps are not constrained by topographical feat ...

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 isla ...

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 estua ...

. 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 ...

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 ...

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially Decomposition, decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, Moorland, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and ...

bog A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; a ...

s, 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 ...

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 BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding ...

as an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Inte ...

(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 The bar-headed goose (''Anser indicus'') is a goose that breeds in Central Asia in colonies of thousands near mountain lakes and winters in South Asia, as far south as peninsular India. It lays three to eight eggs at a time in a ground nest. It ...

ruddy shelduck The ruddy shelduck (''Tadorna ferruginea''), known in India as the Brahminy duck, is a member of the family Anatidae. It is a distinctive waterfowl, in length with a wingspan of . It has orange-brown body plumage with a paler head, while the ...

s, common mergansers, saker falcons, Himalayan vultures,

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 ...

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 Indi ...

s, Tibetan sandgrouse, yellow-billed choughs,

Himalayan rubythroat The Himalayan rubythroat (''Calliope pectoralis'') is a species of passerine bird in the family Muscicapidae. It is closely related to the Siberian rubythroat which however lacks the distinctive white tail-tips and white tail bases. It was also ...

s, white-winged redstarts, white-winged snowfinches, rufous-streaked accentors,

brown accentor The brown accentor (''Prunella fulvescens'') is a species of bird in the family Prunellidae. It is found in Afghanistan, China, India, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикист� ...

s, 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''.

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 Dillon Reservoir, sometimes referred to as Lake Dillon, is a large fresh water reservoir located in Summit County, Colorado, United States, south of I-70 and bordered by the towns of Frisco, Silverthorne, and Dillon. It is a reservoir for the ...

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 Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

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