The Köpet Dag, Kopet Dagh, or Koppeh Dagh ( tk, Köpetdag; fa, کپه‌داغ), also known as the Turkmen-Khorasan Mountain Range, is a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

on the border between

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the sout ...

and

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

that extends about along the border southeast of the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...

, stretching northwest-southeast from near the Caspian Sea in the northwest to the Harirud River in the southeast. In the southwest it borders on the parallel eastern endings of the

Alborz mountains The Alborz ( fa, البرز) range, also spelled as Alburz, Elburz or Elborz, is a mountain range in northern Iran that stretches from the border of Azerbaijan along the western and entire southern coast of the Caspian Sea and finally runs no ...

being together part of the much larger

Alpide belt The Alpide belt or Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt,K.M. Storetvedt, K. M., ''The Tethys Sea and the Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt; mega-elements in a new global tectonic system,'' Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, Volume 62, Issues 1 ...

. The highest peak of the range in Turkmenistan is the Mount Rizeh (Kuh-e Rizeh), located at the southwest of the capital

Ashgabat Ashgabat or Asgabat ( tk, Aşgabat, ; fa, عشق‌آباد, translit='Ešqābād, formerly named Poltoratsk ( rus, Полтора́цк, p=pəltɐˈratsk) between 1919 and 1927), is the capital and the largest city of Turkmenistan. It lie ...

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 Lower may refer to: *Lower (surname) *Lower Township, New Jersey *Lower Receiver (firearms) *Lower Wick Lower Wick is a small hamlet located in the county of Gloucestershire, England. It is situated about five miles south west of Dursley, eig ...

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock that are formed by the accumulation or deposition of mineral or organic particles at Earth's surface, followed by cementation. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause these particles ...

s with a smaller portion of

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...

rocks in the southeastern parts. The mountains were formed in the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

and the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Alpine orogeny. As the

Tethys Sea The Tethys Ocean ( el, Τηθύς ''Tēthús''), also called the Tethys Sea or the Neo-Tethys, was a prehistoric ocean that covered most of the Earth during much of the Mesozoic Era and early Cenozoic Era, located between the ancient continents ...

was closed and the

Arabian Plate The Arabian Plate is a minor tectonic plate in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres. It is one of the three continental plates (along with the African and the Indian Plates) that have been moving northward in geological history and colliding ...

collided with the

Iranian Plate The Iranian Plate is a small tectonic plate thought to underlie the Persian plateau, covering the modern-day countries of Iran and Afghanistan, and parts of Iraq and Pakistan. It is compressed between the Arabian Plate to the southwest, the E ...

and was pushed against it and with the clockwise movement of the

Eurasian Plate The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...

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 A geosyncline (originally called a geosynclinal) is an obsolete geological concept to explain orogens, which was developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before the theory of plate tectonics was envisaged. Şengör (1982), p. 11 A geo ...

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. Karakum

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 The Gorgan Plain, or Dasht-e Gorgan ( fa, دشت گرگان), is situated in northeastern Iran in Golestan Province. It extends from the lower slopes of the Alborz and Kopet Dag mountain ranges to the steppes of Turkmenistan. The River Gorgan fl ...

in Iran. At

Jeitun Jeitun (Djeitun) is an archaeological site of the Neolithic period in southern Turkmenistan, about 30 kilometers north of Ashgabat in the Kopet-Dag mountain range. The settlement was occupied from about 7200 to 4500 BC possibly with short interr ...

(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

Parthia Parthia ( peo, 𐎱𐎼𐎰𐎺 ''Parθava''; xpr, 𐭐𐭓𐭕𐭅 ''Parθaw''; pal, 𐭯𐭫𐭮𐭥𐭡𐭥 ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Med ...

n city of Nisa (Nessa, Nusaý).

Ski resort

This mountain range has a

ski resort A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area – a mountainous area with pistes (ski trails) and a ski lift system. In Nort ...

, officially opened by the former president of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov. 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 Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant m ...

, including

pomegranate The pomegranate (''Punica granatum'') is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub in the family Lythraceae, subfamily Punicoideae, that grows between tall. The pomegranate was originally described throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean re ...

(''Punica granatum''), wild grapes '' Vitis sylvestris'',

fig The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae. Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, it has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world ...

(''Ficus carica''), wild apple ('' Malus turkmenorum''), wild pear ('' Pyrus boissieriana''), wild cherries ('' Prunus spp.'', also called ''Cerasus microcarpa, C. erythrocarpa, C. blinovskii''), wild prune ('' Prunus divaricata''), almonds (''Amygdalus communis''=''Prunus dulcis'', and ''A. scoparia''=''Prunus scoparia''), and hawthorns ( ''Crataegus'' spp.).

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