Landforms of Turkmenistan - Garabogazkl, Turan Depression, List of Lakes in Turkmenistan, Aral-Caspian Depression (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The Garabogazkl Aylagy, alternatively the Kara-Bogaz-Gol (literally "mighty strait lagoon") is a shallow inundated depression in the northwestern corner of Turkmenistan. It forms a lagoon of the Caspian Sea with a surface area of about 18,000 km (6,900 sq mi). It is separated from the Caspian, which lies immediately to the west, by a narrow, rocky ridge having a very narrow opening in the rock through which the Caspian waters flow, cascading down into Garabogazkl (whence the name of the bay"Mighty Strait Lake" in the Turkmen languagecomes). The water volume of the bay fluctuates seasonally with the Caspian Sea; at times it becomes a large bay of the Caspian Sea, while at other times its water level drops drastically. The city of Garabogaz (formerly Bekda) lies on the ridge, about 50 km north of the channel between the main Caspian basin and the Garabogazkl lagoon. The town has a population of about 10,000. The salinity of the bay is about 35%, compared to the Caspian Sea's 1.2% and 3.5% for the world's oceans. Because of the exceptionally high salinity it has practically no marine vegetation. Large evaporite, mostly salt deposits accumulated at the south shore were harvested by the local population since the 1920s, but in the 1930s manual collection stopped and the industry shifted northwest to its present center near Garabogaz. From the 1950s on, ground water was pumped from levels lower than the bay itself, yielding more valuable types of salts. In 1963 construction began at Bekdash on a modern plant for increased production of salines, all the year round and independently of natural evaporation. This plant was completed in 1973. In March 1980, the barrier to the Caspian was blocked, due to concerns evaporation was accelerating a fall i... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=2146535