The Turgay Plateau ( kk, Торғай Үстірті, ''Torğai Üstırtı''; russian: Тургайское плато) is a plateau in north-west

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental coun ...

, central

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...

. It lies 200–300 m above sea level. It extends some 630 km north–south and 300 km east–west. It is bisected by the

Turgay Depression The Turgay Depression, also known as Turgay Basin, Turgay Trough, and Turgay Hollow ( kk, Торғай қолатый; rus, Тургайская ложбина), is a structural basin in Kazakhstan.

which is 800 km long and during the last ice age provided an outlet for the extinct West Siberian Glacial Lake. Between the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

and

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', " ...

, the plateau was part of the

Turgai Straits The Turgai Sea, also known as the Turgay Sea, Turgai Strait, Obik Sea, Ural Sea or West Siberian Sea, was a large shallow body of salt water (an epicontinental or epeiric sea) during the Mesozoic through Cenozoic Eras. It extended north of the pre ...

or West Siberian Sea, an extension of the Tethys Sea that separated Asia from Europe.

References

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Plateaus of Kazakhstan Plateaus of Asia {{Kazakhstan-geo-stub