Geological monuments of nature of the Krasnoyarsk Territory - Museum of Geology of Central Siberia. Faculty of Geography and Geoecology

Geological monuments of nature are geological objects with unique features, put under state protection and having all the necessary documents for this.
The first geological monuments of nature on the territory of the Krasnoyarsk Territory were approved by the decision of the Krasnoyarsk Executive Committee in 1977. They included the Aidashenskaya, Mayskaya, Kubinskaya, Karaulnaya, Lysanskaya, Bolshaya Oreshnaya and Badzheyskaya caves.
In 1981, by decision of the Krasnoyarsk Executive Committee No. 404 dated September 21, 1981, the geological outcrops "Motley Rocks" and the geological outcrop "Popigayskoye", included in the structure of the Popigai astrobleme, in the Khatangsky district of the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug, a geological section along the river Oresh in the Ermakovsky district and the landscape area "Stone Town". Later, the Museum of Permafrost in the city of Igarka, the ice-mineral complex "Ice Mountain" and the Minin Pillars were classified as geological monuments of nature.

Stratigraphic geological monuments

Section of the Dzhebash series along the Oresh River
The monument is located in the Western Sayan, between the Aradansky and Kurtushibinsky ridges, in the basin of the river. Us, on the spit of the rivers Coyard and Oresh.
The Dzhebash series is composed of monotonous green-gray and green metamorphic shales, metamorphosed sandstones, siltstones with subordinate quartzites and limestones, which are subject to intense flaking and corrugation. The base of the Dzhebash Group has not been exposed; the contacts with the overlying deposits are usually tectonic, with intrusions along the contact of sill-like bodies of ultramafic rocks.
With a common conformable occurrence of the Dzhebash series and the overlying Chinga suite, interbeds of gray argillaceous-siliceous and argillaceous-chlorite shales appear in the upper part of the former, which are also found in the lower parts of the obviously Lower Cambrian deposits of the Chinginskaya suite. At the base of the Chinga Formation, a change in the conditions of sedimentation is assumed, which was not accompanied by structural rearrangement.
According to lithological and structural-textural features, the formations of the Dzhebash series are subdivided into five sequences (a, b, c, d, e). The description of the section of the Dzhebash series was compiled on the basis of tracing it along the foot of the right slope of the river. Oresh, where sequences “b”, “c”, “d”, “e” are exposed.
Sequence “b” is composed of green-gray, green and gray, strongly flaky quartz-chlorite, quartz-calcite paraschists, metamorphosed fine- and medium-grained sandstones and shales with interlayers of marmorized limestones, quartzites and sericite-quartzite schists, orthoschists. The thickness of the sequence has not been traced, the upper boundary is conditionally drawn along the top of a well-aged quartzite horizon, the appearance of orthoschist interbeds. Unit "b" roughly corresponds to the Ishkinskaya and Syutkholskaya formations.
Unit “c” is composed of greenish-gray, gray, and yellowish-green paraschists interbedded with bluish-green albite-epidote-chlorite orthoschists of banded texture. Dark-colored varieties predominate in the lower part of the section, while lighter ones in the upper part. The thickness of the stratum along the section is 1400 m. The stratum “c” corresponds to the tops of the Amyl Formation. The upper boundary of the stratum is clear, drawn along the bottom of the orthoschist horizon of the overlying stratum “d”, the lower boundary is tectonic with sandstones and limestones of the Ilemorovo Formation of the Middle Devonian.
Sequence "d" is composed of metamorphosed volcanic rocks of basic composition, green, bluish- and grass-green, weakly banded albite-epidote-chlorite, albite-actinolite-carbonate-chlorite orthoschists and sheared amygdalolithic porphyrites. The sequence is well sustained and can be traced over the area. Relic structures of tuffs, amygdaloidal texture in porphyrites, and spherical separation are observed in the rocks of the sequence. The thickness of the sequence is consistent and is 500 m, the upper boundary is drawn by the disappearance of orthoschists and the appearance of greenish-gray banded quartz-carbonate-chlorite schists.
Unit "e" is composed of monotonous quartz-chlorite-carbonate, quartz-carbonate-chlorite, clayey-chlorite paraschists with thin layers of albite-epidote-chlorite orthoschists.
The incomplete thickness of the sequence is 810 m. The upper contact of the sequence is tectonic with shales of the Chinga suite. The section of the strata in the area is well sustained. The sequence previously belonged to the Amyl Formation of the Middle Cambrian, in its lower part. The thickness of the exposed part of the section of the Dzhebash series is 3800 - 4700 meters.
The age of the Dzhebash Group is accepted as Early-Middle Riphean.
Geological monument of nature of the stratigraphic type of regional rank. The status of a natural monument of the Krasnoyarsk Territory was established by the Decree of the Regional Executive Committee No. 404 of September 21, 1981.

Root outcrops of deposits of the Dzhebash series on the river. Oresh

Cosmogenic geological monuments

Astroblema Popigaiskaya (Tract "Motley Rocks")
Popigai astrobleme (Popigai meteorite crater) is a vast territory in the east of Taimyr. It is located in the Taimyr municipal district and is geographically located in the basin of the Popigay and Rossokha rivers, about 900 km east of Norilsk.
The Popigai crater arose at the end of the Eocene epoch 35.7 million years ago. Although impact structures are also known in many other parts of the Earth, the Popigai crater is the largest Cenozoic impact structure identified so far. It is one of the ten largest craters in the world, and only six impact craters with a diameter of 100 km or more reliably established on Earth are currently known together with Popigaisky. Like other giant impact craters, it is distinguished by a complex internal structure, as well as a variety of individual elements of the internal structure, which in many cases are available for direct observation. The diversity of the composition of rocks that have undergone impact metamorphism, along with varying degrees of their transformation, makes it possible to comprehensively study the nature of impact actions on various substrates. Almost all types of rocks and newly formed minerals known in other impact craters of the World have been found here.
It should be added to this that in terms of the degree of exposure of impact breccias and impactites, which protrude to the surface over an area of ​​more than 1000 km² and also form large (up to 150 m high and many kilometers long) natural outcrops, Popigaisky crater surpasses all known impact craters by earth's surface.
The Popigai crater is the largest reservoir of technical impact diamonds, the total resources of which exceed the total reserves of all diamond-bearing kimberlite provinces in the world. By their origin, impact diamond deposits, figuratively speaking, created by the forces of heaven, have no analogues among other types of mineral deposits.
The most representative outcrops that characterize the ratio of individual varieties of impact breccias and impactites, as well as rocks that make up the base of the crater on the outer slope of the annular trench, are located in the northwestern sector of the crater. Here is the tract Motley Rocks, which is a geological natural monument of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in which blocky allogeneic breccias, overlain by a powerful stratal body of tagamites, form high rocky ledges on the slope of the river valley. Rassokha directly below the mouth of the stream. Sakha-Yuryage. Randomly mixed blocks of various crystalline and sedimentary rocks (partly impact metamorphosed and dissected by veins of tagamites and fine clastic breccias) make up the main part of the valley slope. The varied coloration of these boulders gave the name to the tract. They are cemented by loose fine-clastic breccia (coptoclastite) containing small gneiss bombs bordered by impact glass and sometimes bombs and small glass particles.
The breccia is overlain by a remnant of a columnar tagamite bedding body that plunges up and downstream, where its apparent thickness increases. Downstream on the steep side of the river valley. Rassokha near Mount Khara-Khaya, this powerful body was uncovered almost 140 m. In the lower part of the cliff, tagamites include numerous large (up to 10-20 m) blocks of shock-metamorphosed and thermally transformed gneisses, as well as a large number of smaller fragments of these rocks and their minerals. There are no large gneiss blocks in the upper part of the exposed tagamite bedded body. Here, on a large area, an uneven roof of the tagamite layer is visible, in the deepening of which there is an irregular lens of suevites.

zuvites

The Popigai crater as a whole is a unique geological monument of nature and is a national treasure of Russia that deserves to be preserved and further comprehensively studied. All extensive information obtained in the course of his many years of research, including well cores, collections of samples, etc., is also subject to preservation.
Therefore, the decision of UNESCO to include the Popigai crater in the list of world geological heritage sites is justified.
In accordance with the Decision of the Executive Committee of the Krasnoyarsk Territorial Council of Deputies No. 404 dated September 21, 1981, the Motley Rocks outcrop was recognized as a natural monument of regional significance.

Scheme of the geological structure of the Popigai impact crater

1-4 - coptogenic complex: coptoclastites (1), suevites (2), tagamites (3), polymict allogeneic megabreccias (4), 5 - Early Triassic dolerites, 6 - Permian sedimentary rocks, 7 - Cambrian sedimentary rocks, 8 - Late Proterozoic sedimentary rocks rocks, 9 - Archean metamorphic rocks, 10 - faults, 11 - ring uplift axis

colorful rocks

Tract "Motley rocks"

The site of the fall of the Pallas Iron meteorite
The natural monument "Pallas iron" is located in the Novoselovsky district on the right bank of the Krasnoyarsk reservoir in Ubeysky Bay, on top of the Meteoritnaya hill, 15 km east of the village of Koma (approximately 200 km from Krasnoyarsk).
The meteorite was found in 1749 by blacksmith Yakov Medvedev. The block of iron originally weighed 687 kg. The blacksmith delivered the block to his home in the village of Ubeyskaya (later Medvedevo, Novoselovsky district) and decided to use it for the manufacture of metal products, but the stone turned out to be unsuitable for blacksmithing. For more than 22 years, he lay in the blacksmith's yard before he was identified by the mountain master Johann Mettich.
In 1772, an unusual block was shown to Academician PS Pallas, who was in the area with an expedition. On his instructions, a sample of an unusual breed was sent to St. Petersburg, and in 1777 the entire block was delivered to the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. It was later split into two pieces.
In 1776, P.S. Pallas handed over one of the fragments from the find to an amateur chemist from the city of Stettin, Johann Carl Friedrich Mayer, who was the first in Europe to subject the Siberian find to a comprehensive study. He tried to unravel its nature by comparative analysis with other terrestrial natural formations, as well as artificially obtained varieties of iron and steel. But his research did not give any final results, and could not give, because at that time the composition of meteorites was not yet known.
Later, Academician E.F. Khladni took up the study of the meteorite. It was thanks to these studies that the existence of extraterrestrial matter was proved and the theory of extraterrestrial life was put forward. The data obtained by the scientist formed the basis of the then emerging science - meteoritics. Subsequently, all iron-stone meteorites began to be called pallasites.

Fragment of iron meteorite Pallas iron

In July 1980, not far from the place where the meteorite fell, according to the project of the sculptor Yu.P. Ishkhanov, a memorial sign was installed - a two-meter cast-iron disk, which depicts a fallen meteorite and its flight. On July 31, 1981, the grand opening took place, which surprisingly coincided with a total solar eclipse. In 1987, by decision of the Executive Committee of the Regional Council No. 523 of December 28, 1987, it was decided to preserve the crash site, and a natural monument with an area of ​​78 hectares was created.

Obelisk in the area of ​​the fall of the Pallas iron meteorite

Geological natural monument of cosmogenic type of regional rank. The status of a natural monument of the Krasnoyarsk Territory was approved by the Decree of the Government of the Krasnoyarsk Territory No. 244-p dated May 20, 2015.

Geocryological monuments of nature

Igarsky Permafrost Museum
The museum is located in Igarka. In 1930, a research permafrost station was organized in Igarka to study the problems of permafrost. Since 1936, underground laboratories have been built to study the possibilities of using permafrost as natural refrigerators, as well as to conduct experiments on permafrost soils at constantly operating negative temperatures. Two experimental dungeons were built on the site of the permafrost station, located at the northwestern end of the old part of the city of Igarka. The area is a gentle slope in the south, south-west direction, towards the Yenisei. From the site to the Igarskaya channel 750 m. It rises 40-42 m above the low water level in the river.
The site is composed of thick strata of thin-layered clay deposits of the belt type. Ribbon silty loams and clays pass in places into silty sandy loams, and in places they include lenses of fine sand. The sandy lens exposed in the underground section looks like an area of ​​erosion filling in the main band. All this sequence belongs to the main deposits of the second Yenisei terrace in the area of ​​the city of Igarka. The permafrost on the site extends to a depth of 30-35 m. The active layer reaches 1.8-2.2 m. In some places, in some years, the permafrost remains isolated from the seasonal thawing layer by small talik layers.
The Museum of Permafrost is a unique geological and geographical object, which includes an underground working in the thickness of permafrost rocks of the Karginsky deposits of the second Yenisei terrace. The ice content of the permafrost is 35-50%.
The main exhibit in the museum of permafrost is the permafrost itself, from which the walls of the dungeon are built. In addition, it presents ice samples from the Ice Mountain outcrop, mammoth bones, and remains of relict trees. Experiments are being carried out to freeze fish and plants. Every year, observations are made of the state of the temperature regime in the dungeon.

Exhibits of the "Ice Mountain" complex in the Igarsk Permafrost Museum

frozen plants

A unique structure in permafrost to this day continues to exist in natural form, without the use of artificial installations. Their use would greatly facilitate the maintenance of the dungeon, but would forever deprive it of its true natural character. The underground in the permafrost is used for geocryological research, study of engineering structures and promotion of geological, geographical and ecological knowledge about the environment.
The Museum of Permafrost in the city of Igarka was declared a natural monument of regional significance in accordance with the Decree of the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk Territory No. 5-116p dated March 29, 1995.

Ice-mineral complex "Ice Mountain"
The complex is located on the right bank of the Yenisei, 100 km south of Igarka, at the latitude of the Arctic Circle. On the banks of the Yenisei, 4.5 km below the mouth of the river. Bol. Denezhkino, a layer of pure underground ice comes to the surface. It was discovered in 1972 by employees of the Igarsk Permafrost Research Station of the Institute of Permafrost Science of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences and named Ice Mountain. In the place where the ice layer comes to the surface, its thickness is about 10 m, and further from the coast (according to drilling and geophysical studies) it increases to 40, in some places up to 60 meters.
An analysis of various inclusions in the ice made it possible to determine the age of the most ancient part of the Ice Mountain: 43,000 ± 1,000 years. This is the time of the first Late Quaternary (Zyryansk) glaciation of the Yenisei North. The study of soils carried by an ancient glacier, as well as fungal spores, pollen of ancient plants, various organic remains, made it possible to learn a lot about the climate of that distant era.
Some permafrost experts doubt the glacial origin of this deposit. They believe that the ice body could have been formed in the same way as the majority of stratal ice deposits were formed - during the ancient long-term freezing of water-saturated soils or during the freezing of high-pressure underground sources. Thus, the question of the origin of the "Ice Mountain" remains debatable.
The study of deposits of underground ice is important not only because it expands knowledge about the geological past of the Earth. This knowledge is of practical importance in economic development regions of the North. The melting of massive ice leads to the formation of deep dips, landslides, and the formation of depressions. This must be taken into account when building cities in the North, building bridges, dams, when laying roads and pipelines.
Preservation of the unique natural ice-mineral complex "Ice Mountain" is necessary for carrying out stationary research work. The ice-mineral complex "Ice Mountain" was declared a natural monument of regional significance in accordance with the Decree of the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnoyarsk Territory No. 5-116p dated March 29, 1995.

Ice layers in banded clay
Geomorphological monuments of nature

Outcrop "Red Rocks"
The Red Rocks outcrop is located 5 km east of the city of Talnakh. The outcrop clearly shows how Upper Permian terrigenous deposits are overlain by a sequence of volcanogenic rocks of the trap complex formed in the Early Triassic. The complex is composed of alternating mafic lava covers and their tuffs. The lavas are represented by various diabases, sometimes by spilites; amygdalolithic varieties are present in the roof. The thickness of individual covers is usually 30-40 m. Within the outcrop, the coal brook cuts through the volcanogenic stratum, forming a waterfall up to 13 m high and a small lake. During weathering, the volcanogenic sequence acquires a bright reddish-brown color. Hence the name of the area.
Geological natural monument of geomorphological type of regional rank. In accordance with the Decisions of the Executive Committee of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Council of Deputies No. 471 dated December 19, 1984, the outcrop "Red Rocks" was recognized as a natural monument as a landscape area.

Fragment of the Red Rocks outcrop

Cave Aidashenskaya
Cave Aidashenskaya is located on the northern slope of the Arga ridge in the tract "Devichya Yama", 2 km west of the village. Mazulsky. The entrance to the cave is located on a nameless hill with an absolute elevation of 325 m.
The entrance is cone-shaped, with a section of 4.7 by 3.8 m, with a depth of 5 m to a narrowing. Then there is a narrow steep descent. The main grotto has a slightly elongated elliptical shape, 3.5-4 m wide and 7-8 m long. In section, the grotto is bell-shaped. Its height, after excavation of sediments with the remains of the material culture of the ancient inhabitants, is up to 7 m. The cave was formed about 0.5 million years ago and is a crack in the vertical layers of dolomites, limestones and marbles, which, as a result of exogenous processes, was transformed into a cave. Until the 70s. 20th century the entrance was half-blocked with earth and fragments of limestone. Numerous objects of material culture of the Late Neolithic, Bronze and Early Iron Ages were dispersed in the sediments. The cave in the past served as a cult object, where the locals threw their products to appease the gods. The first excavations in the cave were carried out by treasure hunters in the Middle Ages. At the end of the XIX century. the cave was examined by archaeologists D.S. Kargopolov and P.S. Proskuryakov. Carried out in the 70s. 20th century The excavations made it possible to extract more than 1,100 items of material culture (arrowheads, plaques, beads, harness details, etc.) stored in the Achinsk Museum of Local Lore.
The natural monument was created in order to preserve an unusual cult cave. This is a natural complex, valuable in ecological, aesthetic, scientific and educational respects. Geological natural monument of geomorphological type of regional rank. The status of a natural monument is fixed by the Decision of the Executive Committee of the Regional Council No. 351-13 of 06/08/1977.

Entrance to the cave Aydashenskaya

Cave Karaulnaya-II
Location: Eastern Sayan. Karaulnensky karst-speleological site. Cave Karaulnaya-2 is located on the left slope of the river. Guard, 5 km from the village. Successful.
Here the Yenisei valley reveals a small fold composed of platy limestones, which form cliffs visible in the coastal cliffs above and below the mouth of the Karaulnaya River. The relief of the karst area is low-mountainous. The heights of the hills reach 450 m. Exotic rocks are located near the mouth of the river. Sentry, and upstream. A narrow spoon is visible from the river valley, to the left of which a sheer limestone wall rises. At an altitude of 150 m above the bed of the river valley. Guardhouse under the rock is the vault of the light grotto of the cave. Below in the cave are the Grottoes of Enchantment and Kapelny. The cave is convenient for visiting, including tourists and novice speleologists.
Geological natural monument of geomorphological type of regional rank. The status of a natural monument is fixed by the Decision of the Executive Committee of the Regional Council No. 351-13 of 08.06. 1977




In the cave Karaulnaya-II


Calcite "Pagoda" in the cave Karaulnaya-II


Excursion to the cave

Cuban cave
The natural monument is located in a log on the left bank of the Biryusinsky Bay of the Krasnoyarsk reservoir, 200 m from the mouth of the river. Biryusy, 14 km from the village of Shumikha. The entrance shaft of the Kubinskaya cave is located at the base of a high limestone wall. The entrance to the cave is small, slit-like, vertically descending. In general, the vertical span of the cave (its known depth to the level of permanent flooding) is about 200 meters. Several grottoes are known in the cave: Fidel, Grandiose, Blue Lakes, Antresol. The grotto Grandiose is especially beautiful. Its height is 25 meters, its area is 20 mx 12 m. the western oblique course is especially rich in sinter forms.
Cave Kubinskaya is the deepest in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Before filling the Krasnoyarsk reservoir, its depth was 274 meters. At present, at the minimum levels of the reservoir surface, it is accessible to a depth of 200 meters.
The natural monument was created in order to preserve the unique and one of the largest caves in the region. The cave has a scientific and educational value. Geological natural monument of geomorphological type of regional rank. The status of the monument is fixed by the Decision of the Executive Committee of the Regional Council No. 351-13 of 06/08/1977.

Limestones of the Kubinskaya Cave area

Beautiful streaks in the Cuban cave

Maiskaya Cave
The cave is located on the left bank of the Biryusinsky Bay, 16 km from the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station, in a gorge north of the Tsarskie Vorota ridge. Light massive limestones of the Lower Cambrian are developed on the site.
The entrance to the Maiskaya Cave is located on the northern slope of the gorge in the left wing of the circus, 1 km from the Gendarme rock. Two entrances to the cave are located in the central part of the circus. The cave is connected to the surface by a well. The depth of the cave is somewhat more than 60 m and has two grottoes: the Altar and the Lower. The Altar Grotto is 12 meters high, 25 meters long and 20 meters wide. The cave is famous for its unique beauty of sinter formations.
The natural monument was created in order to preserve the unique beauty of the cave in the region. This natural complex is valuable in ecological, aesthetic, scientific and educational respects.
Geological natural monument of geomorphological type of regional rank. The status of the monument is fixed by the Decision of the Executive Committee of the Regional Council “351-13 of 06/08/1977.

Maiskaya Cave


Sinter formations in Maiskaya Cave

Badzheyskaya cave
The Badzheyskaya cave is located on the slope of a small ridge on the watershed of the Tayozhny and Stepnoy Badzhey rivers, tributaries of the river. mana. The entrance to the cave (Fig. 3.9) is located 3 km east of the village. Nutty.
The Badzheyskaya cave is confined to conglomerates, conditionally attributed to the Ordovician. It begins with an extensive well, 21 m deep. It does not have a labyrinth structure, since the passages are controlled by lines of tectonic disturbances. The cave has a main thoroughfare with side branches. The originality of the situation is created by a large lake, up to 4 m deep, and flowing into the depths of the massif along an inclined channel, with cascades Porcelain Stream. Sinter deposits in the cave are modest and few. But in general, the cave leaves cavers with excellent impressions and a desire to visit it again and again.
The cave is a scientific and educational object for speleotourism. Geological natural monument of geomorphological type of regional rank. By the Decree of the Executive Committee of the Regional Council No. 351-13 dated 06/08/77, the Badzheyskaya Cave was declared a natural monument of regional significance.

conglomerates


Lake in the Jebskaya Cave


Entrance well of Jebskaya cave

Big Oreshnaya Cave
Big Oreshnaya Cave is located in the basin of the river. Mana, on the left bank slope of the river. Mana, on the left bank slope of the river. Taiga Badzhey, 4 km from its confluence with the river. Badzhey and 3 km east of the village. Nutty.
Conglomerates, conventionally attributed to the Ordovician, form a continuous strip 40 km long and 1.5-3.5 km wide in the area where the cave is located. This strip stretches in a north-north-western direction from the right bank of the Mana, from the village. Narva to the village Dirty Kirza.
Bolshaya Oreshnaya Cave is a deep and extensive labyrinth of predominantly inclined passages and galleries in conglomerates. There are grottoes, wells, cracks, honeycomb areas, underground lakes and streams. In the Ozerny grotto, scuba divers dived into the siphon and discovered the "hydrospace" - a vast underwater space that goes beyond the bounds of the possible.
Bolshaya Oreshnaya cave is one of the longest caves in Russia among the caves formed in conglomerates. Its total length is over 40 km. This cave is a speleogigant, which allowed the Krasnoyarsk Territory to firmly hold the first place in terms of the length of caves in Russia. Speleologists have been exploring it for over 30 years, but almost every expedition has opened new dungeons.
Geological natural monument of geomorphological type. The status of the monument was fixed by the decision of the Executive Committee of the Regional Council in 1977

Entrance to the cave


Calcite wall hangings


Sinter formations

step-shaped calcite deposits

Cave Lysanskaya
Lysanskaya cave is located in the mountainous taiga area, 35 km east of the village and the railway station Shchetinkino and 30 km northeast of the village. Chibizhek. There is a logging road next to the cave. The area of ​​the established protection zone at the entrance is 1 ha, the total surface area above the cave is 20 ha.
Karst phenomena in the river basin. The Pavlovka, a right tributary of the Balakhtison, is associated with Vendian dark layered limestones (geological age is about 600 million years). The terrain is low-mountainous. The dominant peaks rise 900 - 960 m above sea level, and the relative elevations are up to 350 m. There are funnels, remnants, ledges and caves in the limestones.
The Lysanskaya cave is located on the right side of the stream of the same name, 0.5 km above its mouth. The trapezoidal entrance is raised 3 m above the bed of the stream. Lysan. In summer, a river flows through the entrance, during the flood period it falls like a waterfall through the entrance, and in winter it is dry and richly decorated with ice stalactites and stalagmites. At 40 m from the entrance, the ceiling of the gallery drops sharply, forming a half-siphon, which can be overcome in the winter low water on a rubber boat, bending down. This is followed by the lower water floor, accessible for swimming at a distance of 250 m. Here the ceiling of the gallery goes under water to a depth of about 10 m, forming a siphon. It is overcome by speleologists-scuba divers.
The upper floor of the cave begins with a narrow winding manhole leading to the Dry and Lake galleries. Their walls are richly ornamented with sinter deposits - columns, draperies, cascades. In the Lake Gallery there are reservoirs, the banks and bottom of which are covered with beautiful calcite patterns. The walls are dressed with white draperies, and stalactites hang from the ceiling. the total length of the cave is more than 2000 m, and not all underwater galleries have been explored. There is no second such cave in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
In order to protect the unique cave landscape, speleologists in the eighties concreted the entrance hole on the second floor, installing a metal hatch. But soon it was blown up by unknown persons. Only remoteness from cities and inaccessibility of the upper floor save the cave from modern vandals. The cave needs protection as an outstanding natural monument.
Geological natural monument of geomorphological type of regional rank. The status was established by the Decree of the Executive Committee of the Regional Council No. 351-13 of 06/08/1977.

In the Lysan cave




Stalactites and Helectites in the Lysan Cave


On the lake in the Lysan cave

stone town
"Stone Town" is located in the Western Sayan, 20 km west of the weather station Olenya Rechka, located on the Usinsky tract (federal highway M-54 Krasnoyarsk-Kyzyl). Here, in the mid-mountain relief, there are exotic remnants composed of granites. The relatively compact (10 x 5 km) oval distribution area of ​​these remnants is limited by the valleys of the Bolshaya and Malaya Oya rivers. All the remains are located on the southern slope of the ridge between these rivers.
Geologically, the remains of the Stone Town are located on the area of ​​the Dzhebash-Amyl morphostructural zone of the second order, the Klumys-Upper-Amyl block, the morphostructure of the third order. They are exits to the surface of the Ambulak intrusive massif.
The formation of the Dzhebash-Amyl morphostructure is due to its stable recent uplift of medium and moderate intensity with an amplitude of 200 to 1500 m, which led to the formation of mid-mountain and high-mountain relief types. Within this morphostructure, the Kulumys-Upper-Amyl block is distinguished, which spatially coincides with the southern part of the Dzhebash-Amyl structural-formational zone. The block is composed of shales of the Dzhebash series intruded by granitoid intrusions. The block is characterized by an intense regime of neotectonic movements, which led to the formation of a mid-mountain erosion-denudation relief with an absolute watershed of 1200-2000, relative elevations of up to 500-700 m.
According to the totality of morphogenetic factors, the following are distinguished here: newly formed denudation, ancient denudation, structural-denudation, erosion-accumulative relief river valleys.
The newly formed denudation type of relief is widespread. Team work processes of complex denudation led to the formation of rounded flattened landforms within the middle and high mountains. This type of relief is widespread within the erosion-denudation middle mountains and in the high-mountain tier of the relief. The watershed spaces here are represented by a system of dome-shaped smoothed peaks, separated by wide saddles.
Stone Town", having many common features with the geological monument of nature "Stolby", is much smaller both in area and in size of individual remnants. Both of these geological monuments of nature are significantly subjected to anthropogenic pressure. Almost all the remnants show traces of tourist camps with significant accumulations of garbage, although on the approaches to the "Stone Town" there are billboards with the inscriptions "Natural monument. protected by the state." Nevertheless, this is an excellent example of the mountain-taiga relief of the Western Sayan. From the upper remains, located on the ridge, there is a good view to the south of the Aradan ridge with snow-covered peaks. From here you can see the old Usinsky tract. Tourist organizations of the regional center Ermakovskoye conduct walking and horseback riding tours from the Olenya Rechka to the Stone Town (including for schoolchildren). The natural monument is also visited by groups of water tourists rafting down the Bolshaya Oya River.
Geological natural monument of geomorphological type of regional rank. The status of a natural monument is fixed by the Decision of the Executive Committee of the Regional Council No. 404 of September 21, 1981.

Remnant of granites in the Stone Town


Remains on the ridge on the watershed of the Bolshaya and Malaya Oya rivers


Panorama of the Stone Town

minin pillars
Location: Eastern Sayan, Solgon Ridge, Krasnoyarsk Ridge.
The area as a whole is characterized by a valley low-mountain taiga landscape, mainly with sculptural landforms, but with a noticeable influence on their location of elements of the geological structure.
A feature of the considered part of the Krasnoyarsk ridge is that it is located close to the main base of erosion - the Yenisei valley and therefore is dissected very intensively and quite deeply.
The Minin Pillars are very similar to the outcrops of intrusive rocks on the territory of the Stolby Reserve. Some researchers refer to these intrusive formations as the Lutag complex, while others refer to the Shumikhinsky complex of alkaline syenites, nordmarkites, and subalkaline granites.
In most cases, the host rocks for the intrusive bodies of the complex are volcanogenic formations of the Byskar series, which break through the intrusions and metamorphose. The placement of intrusions is controlled by discontinuous dislocations that are renewed or laid down at a late stage of the region's activation. The intrusive rocks of the Shumikhinsky complex compose the largest massif within this area - Listvensky, as well as a number of small bodies on the watershed of the Gladkaya Kacha and Bol rivers. Listvenki.
The following spatial distribution of rock differences is observed in the surface section of the massif. Granites and granosyenites compose the northern and eastern parts of the massif and make up about 40% of its total area. The southern part of the massif is composed of uniform in composition and structure coarse-grained meat-red quartz syenites and nordmarkites. The western apophysis is represented mainly by porphyritic granosyenites, which are replaced by fine-grained granosyenite porphyries on a higher erosional section. Mutual transitions between the identified rock varieties are gradual and sometimes hardly perceptible.
In the area of ​​syenite development, the distribution has round-topped or wide flat watersheds, the top parts of which are characterized by numerous kurums and weathering remnants in the form of manes, ridges and pillars.
The valleys of streams, as a rule, have a V-shape, their slopes are steep, often steep and rocky, sometimes covered with stone screes. Upstream, they turn into steeply rising dry hollows, ending in steeply sloping sinkholes. In areas where rivers cut through the syenite massif, rocky outliers with bizarre outlines are noted along the slopes (Fig. 3.16).
Geological natural monument of geomorphological type of local importance. The status was established by the Decree of the administration of the Krasnoyarsk Territory No. 310-p dated 19.08. 2002
The region of the Minin Pillars has long been loved and often visited by Krasnoyarsk residents because of the bizarre shape of the syenite remnants located here, many of which have their own names. From a scientific point of view, a visual manifestation on given object endogenous and exogenous geological processes.

Rocky outcrop of syenites

Outcrops of syenite rocks in winter

Sulomai pillars
The natural monument "Sulomaisky Pillars" is located in the Evenki municipal district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. It is located in the lower reaches of the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, 20-30 km above the village. Sulomai, on the Tunguska Ridge of the Central Siberian Plateau.
This is a canyon with a length of about half a kilometer with steep slopes 120-150 meters high, clamping the Podkamennaya Tungusska River. The slopes of the canyon on both banks are vertical pillars of various most intricate shapes with a diameter of 6-10 meters and a height of 30-80 meters. These six-sided pillars were formed as a result of weathering of the remnants of the Lower Triassic trap formation.
Geological natural monument of geomorphological type of regional rank. The status of a natural monument is fixed by the Decision of the Executive Committee of the Regional Council No. 455 of December 25, 1985.

Sulomai pillars. Remains of traps.

Panorama of the natural monument "Sulomaisky pillars"

Sulomai pillars.

Ergaki mountain range
The Ergaki massif is located in the Ermakovsky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, 410 km along the M-54 highway to the south-west of the city of Abakan.
The area is confined to the central zone of the Western Sayan. The geomorphology of the region is a sharply dissected mid-mountain relief of the alpine type. The area is mountain-taiga, dissected by a river network.
The main orographic element is the axial part of the West Sayan Range, stretching approximately in the latitudinal direction in the form of a mountain range, which includes the Kulumys Range, the Ergaki and Kutyn-Taiga ranges. The highest absolute elevations reach 2000-2200 m. The described geological landmark is located in the Verkh river basin. Buiba, Us.
Geologically, this territory is located in the northeastern part of the Lower Paleozoic fold-block structure of the Western Sayan. Within its boundaries, two folded structures of regional significance are distinguished - the Dzhebash anticlinorium and the West Sayan synclinorium, the boundary between which runs along the Oisky fault. In addition, in the southeast of the territory, there is the eastern end of the Usinsky superimposed intermountain depression, composed of weakly deformed Upper Silurian and Devonian deposits.
Most of the territory is occupied by intrusive formations attributed to the Joy intrusive complex, composing the Buiba and Berezovsky massifs and a number of small bodies, which, apparently, are satellites of the Buiba pluton.
The granitoids of the complex intrude and metamorphose Late Proterozoic, Late Silurian, and Early-Middle Devonian rocks. The age of the intrusive formations of the Joya complex in the studied area is dated as the Middle Devonian. The formation of the complex took place in four phases. They are fully represented only in the Buiba massif.
The first phase includes gabbro-diorites, diorites, quartz diorites and granodiorites. The rocks of this phase are involved in the structure of almost all massifs and small bodies. Their characteristic feature is heterogeneity in composition and structure. The area occupied by them is about 80 km2.
The second phase of the formation of the complex is the main one. Adamellites, medium-grained granites, porphyritic granites with fine- and medium-grained groundmass, and coarse-grained weakly porphyritic granites are distinguished according to the compositional features, sizes of constituent minerals, and confinement to different zones. These varieties are interconnected by gradual transitions. Granites of the second phase intrude and metamorphize diorites of the first phase. The area occupied by it is about 470 km2.
The third phase is represented mainly by fine- and medium-grained granites, granite-porphyries. They are distributed only within the development of phase II granites, with which they have phase relationships. The area occupied by these formations is about 60 km2.
The fourth phase in the Joy complex is conventionally identified. It is represented by alkali-feldspar leucocratic and riebeckite granites. Granites of this phase were mapped over an area of ​​about 30 km2.
In relation to the folded structures of the enclosing strata, the massifs of the complex occupy a sharply discordant position. In plan view, they are slightly elongated in the meridional direction.
The largest of the identified massifs is Buibinsky with a total area of ​​about 600 km2. In the meridional direction, the studied part of the massif was traced for 32 km. The maximum width is up to 28 km in the northern part of the semitone, to the south it narrows to 13 km.
The Lower-Middle Devonian age of the Buiba complex is determined by the fact that it cuts through volcanogenic formations of the Kyzylbulak and Byskar series of the Lower-Middle Devonian.
In relation to the folded structures of the enclosing strata, the massif occupies a sharply discordant position. The enclosing intrusives are in the east, west and southwest the formations of the Upper Proterozoic that experienced regional metamorphism, in the southeast - the effusive rocks of the Kyzylbulak series of the Early-Middle Devonian. At contact with granitoids, the rocks of these sequences are intensely hornfelsed.
The landforms of the studied area were formed as a result of a complex interaction of various factors. These structures are based on an endogenous factor associated with arch-block movements that occurred in the Western Sayan at the border of the Tertiary and Quaternary periods and turned this area into a mountain structure.
The Quaternary history of the formation of the relief of this territory is inextricably linked with the processes of repeated glaciation, against which the erosional activity of the modern river network subsequently developed. Subsequent erosion and denudation in some areas almost completely masked the traces of past glaciations, but in most cases they are noted in fairly recent preservation.
Morphological features largely depend on the geological structure of the region. The western and extreme northeastern parts of the described territory, composed of metamorphic rocks of the Upper Proterozoic, are characterized by an extremely indented relief and steep slopes of individual ridges and peaks. The volcanic-sedimentary rocks of the Devonian and the southeastern part of the area were partially denuded and acquired a relatively smooth outline, which differs from the relief of typical alpine regions.
The central part of the region, composed of intrusive formations of the Buiba massif, is characterized by high-mountainous alpine landforms - sharp peaks, ridges, steep slopes, an abundance of kars with numerous lakes. Relative elevations reach 1000 m. Rocky peaks rise 300-500 m above the passes. Separate bald mountains and, especially, bald mountain ranges with elevations of 2000 m or more are indented by numerous deep and large cirques. The bottom of the caravans is usually at the level of modern woody vegetation (1500-1600 m). Due to the abundance of deeply incised kars, the tops of such barrens and ridges have a sharp ridge and bare rocky steep slopes. There are also flat-topped loaches /93/.
In general, this area is characterized by the predominance of denudation processes over accumulation processes. Accumulative landforms are represented mainly by glacial, deluvial-proluvial and alluvial-proluvial deposits.
Currently, river erosion is in the process of recovery. This is evidenced by the underdevelopment of the river profile, especially in the zone of the Alpine highlands. The regressive deep erosion proceeding upwards along the valleys from the lower reaches has not yet reached the upper reaches of the rivers, where the typically pronounced trough valleys are well preserved.
Rivers on different segments of their course have different transverse profiles. In the upper reaches, the transverse profile of the river. Bol. Taigish, Mal. Taigish, Nizh. Buiba and Wed. The buoy is due to the accumulation of moraines and has a trough-shaped appearance. The stepping of their longitudinal profile is explained by the transverse shafts of terminal moraines 40 to 120 m high, between which there are gently sloping and almost flat bottoms, often hilly in places of the remains of the moraines themselves. In the lower reaches, the transverse profile of these rivers is V-shaped with convex slopes, and in some places even canyon-shaped.
The difference in the profiles of different segments of the valleys reflects the features of the latest tectonic movements.
Accumulative forms of riverine origin are mainly represented by deposits of floodplain terraces up to 1.0 m high.
On the slopes of the valleys of all large watercourses, deluvial-proluvial and alluvial-proluvial plumes and alluvial fans are observed, expressed in the relief in the form of inclined surfaces, ending in ledges up to 10-15 m high. The alluvium of the tributaries takes part in the formation of alluvial fans.
Glacial landforms are developed throughout the area and are represented by kars, trough valleys, sheep's foreheads, smoothed and curly rocks and moraines.
Kars are the most common landform in the highlands. The shape of the kars in cross section is cauldron-shaped or cup-shaped with large rocky walls, the height of which reaches hundreds of meters, and gently concave bottoms. Carriages are devoid of snow and ice, covered with rock fragments coming from weathered rocky slopes. Often at the bottom of the kars there are kar lakes, fed by melting snow and giving rise to streams and rivers. In connection with repeated changes in the altitude position of the snow boundary at various stages of glaciation, caravan stairs were formed.
Under the initial car, the walls of which go straight up into the sharp ridge of the ridge, below the slope are the second, third, etc., separated from each overlying by a clearly pronounced ledge tens of meters high. The youngest are the cirques in the near-top parts. The absence of active cars indicates a higher level of the snow line at the present time.
Upper valleys major rivers are typical trogs. They are distinguished by straightness, smoothed, slightly concave at the base and slightly dissected sides, and sharply conspicuous, the discrepancy between the development and size of the current stream. The tributaries of these rivers also have the appearance of troughs, which break off in ledges to the thalweg of the main trough. The height of the ledges reaches 100-150 m.
The open valleys on the watersheds of the Bol rivers are a peculiar sculptural heritage of the ancient glaciation. Taigish - MS. Buiba, Mal. Taigish - Top. Buiba, Mal. Taigish - Shadat. Their origins are unknown.
Moraine forms complement the peculiar glacial landscape of the area. They are located mainly in the valleys of large watercourses and are characterized by a combination of irregular hills, ridges, ramparts, between which there are depressions filled with water or swampy areas. In the middle reaches of the river Below the confluence of its two main sources, there are several rectilinear moraine ridges elongated parallel to the sides of the valley. They have a height of 10-15 m, an average width of 10 m, and are composed of boulders of granites placed in a sandy-clayey and fine-grained mass. The material is poorly sorted. The sizes of boulders reach 3-4 m. Similar deposits are noted along the valleys of the river. Lower Buiba, Mal. Taigish, Wed. Buiba, Top. Buiba. More powerful moraine deposits are noted in the valley of the creek. Golden, whose trough valley cuts

View of Ergaki from the M-54 highway


hanging stone


Mountain range of Ergaki ridge, glacial lake

Rock "Parabola"


"Sleeping Saiyan"


Panorama of Ergaki Park

ancient moraine. These data indicate a repeated act of glaciation in the studied area.
The permafrost relief in the work area is represented by upland terraces, kurums, and remnant forms.
Upland terraces are found in the near-top parts of all ranges of the area above the tree line. The climatic conditions here are more severe than in the valleys. Terraces are located one above the other. The height of the ledges reaches 50 m, the width is 100-300 m, the steepness of the slopes is 25-450, degrees 2-50. Upland terraces are formed very slowly, which is indicated by the fact that the walls of the cairns of the last glaciation cut off both ledges and terrace surfaces. Kurums are very characteristic of the slopes of the high-mountain relief. Their source of nutrition is the bedrock that forms the slopes. Kurums are formed only under certain lithological conditions, where rocks initially form large blocks and fragments (at least 2-3 dm) in the weathering bed. Therefore, kurums do not form on shales and metamorphosed sandstones. Kurums are developed almost everywhere on the ridges and tops of mountains, on saddles, on the slopes of ridges.
The steepness of the slopes is not critical. Kurums develop on steep and gentle slopes (3-50).
Their sizes and outlines are varied in plan. The surface of the kurums is uneven, complicated by gently sloping ups and downs.
Numerous tourists are annually attracted to this area by narrow, sometimes rocky ridges on the ridge and its spurs, with pointed picturesque peaks and steep slopes, often with cliffs and talus. Tourist trails are laid on the slopes, through widespread scree, and the rocks rising among them are remnants.
The highest point of the attraction is 2260 Zvezdny Peak. Other significant peaks: Ptitsa Peak, Mount Dinozavr, Molodezhny Peak, etc.
None of the valleys is similar to the other, as are dozens of lakes bearing poetic names: Marble, Rainbow, Ice, Mountain Spirits. The names of the rocks are no less figurative: Sleeping Sayan, Hanging Stone. Ergaki translated from Turkic means "fingers". Many rocks resemble them.
A geological landmark of a geomorphological type with elements of a petrographic type.
. The status of a natural monument was established by the Decree of the Council of Administration of the Krasnoyarsk Territory No. 107-p dated April 4, 2005 No. 351-13 dated June 8, 1977.

Autumn in Ergaki

Complex geological monuments of nature

Reserve "Stolby"
The state reserve "Stolby" is located on the watershed of the Kaltat River and the Mokhovoy Creek, the left tributaries of the Bazaikha River.
Despite the fact that the Stolby reserve is a protected area, the Stolbovsky massif located on its area and the picturesque syenite rocks genetically related to it do not cease to be unique geological objects. That is why in the literature "Pillars" are described as a geological monument of nature. In our opinion, this is a monument of a complex type (petrological-petrographic, geomorphological) of federal rank, which is of great scientific and aesthetic value. It is a major tourist-excursion and sports facility.
Picturesque syenite rocks - pillars, located in the vicinity of Krasnoyarsk, have long attracted people with their grandeur. The earliest written references to the "Pillars" date back to 1823. Prokhor Seleznev, a Krasnoyarsk miner, wrote: "The rocks are very large and wonderfully created ... Perhaps they say the truth that even in other lands you will not see such." In 1842 P.A. Chikhachev described: “The rounded pyramids are arranged in pairs. You might think that these are colossal ruins of some cyclopean buildings.
The Stolby reserve is located on the watershed of the Mana and Bazaikha rivers, the right tributaries of the Yenisei. Its area is 47.2 thousand hectares. The highest absolute heights do not exceed 800 m, and most of the area has heights in the range of 400-700 m above sea level. Almost the entire territory of the reserve is covered with dark coniferous taiga. There are small steppe areas. Its flora and fauna are rich and varied. In general, this is a complex natural reserve of the taiga zone of Russia.
Syenites, alkaline syenites, intruding Upper Proterozoic and Lower Paleozoic formations in the northwestern part of the Eastern Sayan, are attributed by many researchers to the Stolbovka complex of Devonian age. Some researchers describe these rocks as part of the Shumikhinsky complex.
One of the most typical representatives this complex is the Stolbovsky massif - a petrotypical (reference) massif of the Stolbovsky complex. In plan, the array has an oval, isometric shape. Its area on the day surface is about 36 km2. The exposure of the massif is satisfactory. Primary outcrops are frequent on all watersheds within the massif. All exotic rocks of the reserve are composed of syenite rocks of this massif. In general, these breeds are quite monotonous. The central part of the massif is composed of porphyritic biotite-hornblende syenites, gradually changing in places into syenite-diorites.
In the marginal parts, these are coarse-grained and less often medium-grained alkaline syenites and nordmarkites. Very rarely, quartz syenites and granodiorites are noted here. All transitions between these breeds are gradual, without sharp boundaries. All varieties are characterized by a mattress-like, cushion-like, large-block parting. Dikes are mainly represented by syenite-porphyries, microsyenites, and veins of aplite-like syenites. The host rocks are hornfelsed.
The age of the rocks of the massif, according to radiological data, is from 302 to 460 Ma. Some researchers describe it as Early Devonian, others as Middle Devonian.
The formation of the Stolbovsky complex is associated with Devonian tectonic-magmatic activation in the northwestern part of the Eastern Sayan. A new stage of tectonic activity in the Pliocene and Anthropogenic involved the structures of the Eastern Sayan in the processes of blocky orogeny, the formation of the modern landscape, and the emergence of certain parts of the Stolbovsky massif on the surface. Geomorphologically pronounced rock remains, called pillars, can be considered as prepared roof irregularities or syenite apophyses in the sedimentary rocks of the frame. The latter are easily destroyed under the influence of various exogenous processes under the conditions of the development of a denudation relief.

Rock "Manskaya wall"


Rock "Grandfather"


View of the central pillars from the rock "Fourth Pillar"


Rocks "First Pillar" and "Second Pillar"

Rock "First Pillar"


Rock "Feathers"

Within the reserve, 4 regions (groups) of rocks are distinguished. The closest to the city, 1.5 km from the village. Bazaikha - Tokmakovskiy district. Here are the rocks "Takmak", "Chinese wall", "Sparrows", etc., located in an amphitheater near the small river Mokhovaya (left tributary of the Bazaikha river). In the middle reaches of the river Kaltat is another - Kaltat district. Here are the rocks "Bell towers", "Sunken boat", etc. The third district Laletinsky (Tourist-excursion) is located 12-13 km from the city of Krasnoyarsk. Here are the most famous rocks - "Feathers", Grandfather, First Pillar, Second Pillar and many others. They are also located in an amphitheater at the head of the river. Laletina. The most remote from the city are the rocks of the "Wild Pillars" area - "Fortress", "Manskaya Baba", "Wild Stone", etc., located in the upper reaches of the Dry Kaltat River.
Despite the reserved regime, "Pillars" are visited daily by hundreds of Krasnoyarsk residents, guests of the city, including climbers and rock climbers. Therefore, a tourist-excursion area has been allocated on the territory of the reserve (with an area of ​​1.4 thousand hectares). Organized access of tourists is allowed here with the obligatory observance of the regime and rules of the reserve.

1. Burpala alkaline massif
2. Yoko-Dovyren gabbro-peridotite complex
3. Sections of the Akitkan Proterozoic Series along the Goudzhekit and Kunerma rivers
4. Ophiolite massif of Cape Thin
5. Botovskaya cave
6. Thermal spring Khakusy
7. Kotelnikovsky source of thermal siliceous waters
8. Allinskie springs of thermal fresh waters
9. Seismotectonic structure of Shartle
10. Insky rock garden
11. Bodies of holy bearers of the Svyatoy Nos Peninsula
12. Cheremkhoskoye coal deposit
13. Cretaceous-Paleogene weathering crust of Sarayskaya Bay
14. rift basin
15. Paleozoic complexes of the Olkhon region and the islands
16. Goryachinsky thermal spring
17. Location of the Jurassic continental biota of Ust-Baley
18. Tazheran alkaline massif
19. Marakta source of mineral waters
20. Weathering remnants and deposits of pebbles in Peschanaya Bay
21. Calcite Cave
22. Diaphtorites of the Zyrkuzun loop
23. Metasomatic complexes of Belaya Vyemka
24. Slyudyansky mining area
25. Location of rare minerals Utochkina Pad
26. Ermakovskoe fluorite-phenacite-bertrandite deposit
27. Tankhoy system of seismic dislocations
28. Seismogenic structure Snezhnaya
29. Location of the remains of the Pliocene Urunga
30. Location of early Jurassic insects Novospasskoye

• Active volcano Shiveluch
• Active volcano Klyuchevskaya Sopka
• Active volcano Bezymyanny
• Cinder cones of the Great Fissure Tolbachik Eruption
• Active volcano Ichinskaya Sopka
• Active volcano Kronotskaya Sopka
• Volcano Khangar
• Volcanic ultramafic complex of the Valagin ridge
• Active volcano Kikhpinych
• Uzon volcano caldera
• Active volcano Krasheninnikov
• Active Volcano Bolshoi Semyachik
• Valley of Geysers14 Maly Semyachik active volcano
• Active volcano Karymskaya Sopka
• Active volcano Avachinskaya Sopka
• Active volcano Gorely
• Active volcano Sopka Opala

The national heritage of any state is a lot, including a variety of monuments: historical, cultural, archaeological, natural. Among the latter are separate objects of animate and inanimate nature, whose scientific, educational, educational, historical, memorial or cultural and aesthetic significance is so great that it forces the state and the population to ensure their safety in order to pass them on from generation to generation. The monuments of inanimate nature include geological objects.

Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 900 of December 26, 2001 established for the first time that the protection of geological objects of scientific, cultural, aesthetic and other significance should be carried out within the framework of the previously adopted Federal Law “On Specially Protected Natural Territories” No. 33-FZ of March 14. 1995.
Like specially protected natural areas, geological objects can be of federal, regional and local importance and protected, respectively, at the federal, regional and local levels.

Along with this, a small part of the country's geological objects is currently protected not as natural areas, but as cultural monuments (some caves, ancient mines), as well as museums-reserves (for example, the Marcial Waters museum-reserve in), which, like specially protected natural areas, are also ranked according to their significance (federal, regional and local significance).

The rank of geological objects protected and proposed for protection is not legally regulated and is determined solely by their scientific, cultural and aesthetic significance. According to these criteria, global, supra-regional, regional and local ranks of geological objects are distinguished. Only geological objects of global and supra-regional rank, protected and proposed for protection, are placed on the map.

Geological objects of global rank include objects that characterize the general patterns of development of planetary shells and the main inhomogeneities of the Earth, as well as unique on a global scale. Geological objects of supra-regional rank include objects that reflect the patterns of development of individual continents, oceans, as well as unique ones on a supra-regional scale.

In recent years, a set of geological objects that have scientific, historical, cultural or aesthetic significance is called the geological heritage. The division of the geological heritage into types is carried out, as a rule, according to the subject principle.

Stratigraphic type - stratotypes, stratotype localities, reference sections of stratigraphic units of different ranks, as well as sections that characterize significant intervals of a geological section in a continuous occurrence.

Paleontological type - locations of the remains of ancient organisms or traces of their life, outstanding in terms of diversity, rarity and (or) degree of preservation of fossils.

Mineralogical type - localities with a wide variety of minerals, objects of concentration of various mineralogical and crystallographic rarities, as well as areas of modern mineral formation.

Ore-litho-petrological type - outcrops (massifs) of characteristic or rare rocks and ores with clear indications of their composition, structure and texture, as well as other clear evidence of their formation processes.

Radiogeological type - geological objects characterized by high natural radioactivity.

Neotectonic type - areas of manifestation of the newest.

Paleotectonic type - areas of the earth's crust, clearly reflecting in well-exposed sections the results of the manifestation of tectonic processes of the geological past.

Structural-geological type - traces of manifestations of various kinds of tectonic dislocations.

Cosmogenic type - areas of influence of cosmic impact events on the day surface and interior, as well as sections with interlayers of impact origin.

Geothermal type - objects with pronounced geothermal anomalies.

Facies-paleogeographic type - geological objects that make it possible to reconstruct facies and paleogeographic conditions of sediment accumulation.

Geocryological type - subsoil areas containing fossil ice and (or) permafrost rocks.

Technogenic type - mine workings, their dumps and artificial reservoirs, on which geological processes caused by technogenesis take place.
Historical-geological type - objects of fundamental geological research, as well as mine workings of historical significance.
Most geological sites of scientific, historical, cultural or aesthetic significance correspond to more than one type of geological heritage. Characteristic, for example, are combinations of stratigraphic, paleontological and facies-paleogeographic types, ore-litho-petrological and mineralogical types, neotectonic and geomorphological types of geological heritage, etc. Such geological objects with the manifestation of several different types of heritage are called polytype. With certain share Conventionally, one of the types presented on a polytype geological object can be considered dominant.

The highest level of protection for geological objects is the world level, which is determined by their location within the World Heritage Sites (WHR) protected in accordance with the UNESCO “Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage” (1972), ratified by the USSR in 1988. Such objects on the territory There are nine in Russia: the Curonian Spit (together with), the Western Caucasus, the Virgin Komi Forests, the Golden Mountains of Altai, the Ubsunur Hollow (together with), Lake Baikal, Ostrov, the Volcanoes of Kamchatka and the Central Sikhote-Alin.

The Curonian Spit is located near the southern coast opposite the city and is a continuous strip of sand dunes 0.3-1 km wide, up to 68 m high, and up to 70 km long along the peninsula. The spit is accumulative, created by eolian and wave-cutting activity. In terms of the scale of manifestation of accumulative activity, the Curonian Spit has no analogues in Northern Europe.

The Western Caucasus is located in the upper reaches of the Malaya Laba and Belaya rivers and is an area of ​​development of exceptionally picturesque landforms created by alpine folding: pointed rocks, deep gorges, trough valleys, moraines, tarns, lakes, etc. The wide distribution of limestones led to the development of karst landforms, such as funnels, caves, wells and mines with underground rivers, lakes and waterfalls. Thus, the total length of underground passages in the northern part of the Fisht massif, composed of Late Callovian-Tithonian bioherm limestones, exceeds 15 km. In the sources of the Thach River there is a rich accumulation of Middle-Late Triassic ammonites, reaching 1 m in diameter.

The virgin Komi forests occupy the western slopes of the Northern and Subpolar Urals, where mainly stratigraphic objects of great scientific importance are represented. Of greatest interest is the almost continuous section of the Upper Ordovician-Upper Permian on the Kozhym River. Described here whole line stratotypes of the Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian. The remains of a diverse fauna of good preservation are represented by trilobites, conodonts, brachiopods, crinoids, bivalves, foraminifers, ostracods, and fish. The rich Early Carboniferous complex of ammonoids presented here has also gained worldwide fame. On the Kozhym River, in the form of a giant tectonic breccia with blocks up to 50-70 m in diameter, a horizon of sediment slippage from the Silurian to the Permian along the underlying Ordovician rocks is also exposed. Of the stratigraphic objects of great interest are the Yareneisky (Limbeko-Yu) Upper Ordovician-Lower Silurian section rich in diverse faunal remains, the Upper Silurian-Lower Devonian Syvyu section and the Upper Devonian West Syvyu section, the Ordovician-Silurian reef complexes on the Balbanyu River and the Upper Mesozoic Rocks Reef on the river Kozhym.

The Golden Mountains of Altai are an area of ​​development of a pronounced alpine relief. Mount Belukha (4506 m) is the highest peak in Altai. considered as the second deepest (340 m) continental rift basin in Russia, filled fresh water. The lake area is characterized by modern tectonic activity. In the spurs of the Sailyugem Ridge, in the upper reaches of the Kalguta River, Devonian volcanic rocks of all depth facies are developed. There is also a deposit of rare metal ores and a dike complex (kalgutites) with a high content of rare alkalis.

The Ubsunur basin is located on both sides of the Mongolian-Russian border on the territory adjacent to the lake Uvs-Nur (Uvs Nuur). The basin is a neotectonic Paleogene-Pliocene graben with absolute elevations of 750 - 1500 m. The length of the basin from west to east is 600 km, from north to south - 160 km, the sides are usually steep, limited by the latest faults. A thick sequence of Paleogene-Pliocene deposits was formed in the basin, including eolian sands in the southeastern part. From paleontological objects, the locations of fossils of the Paleogene (bones of fish, turtles, reptiles and mollusks) and Neogene (rhinos, ostriches, giraffes, monkeys), characteristic of a warm climate, are known. Of interest is also the Mongun-Taiga Devonian granitoid massif, which is a large isometric batholith with small satellite intrusions located along its periphery.

Lake Baikal is the world's largest continental rift basin filled with fresh water. Its depth is 1637 m. The bottom sediments of Lake Baikal contain information about the climatic changes in the region over the past 5 million years. Lake Baikal and the adjacent territory are distinguished by an amazing abundance and variety of geological “sights”. Among them, the Slyudyansky mining region and the Tazheransky alkaline massif are of the greatest interest. The Slyudyansky mining region is one of the oldest mining regions in Russia, known since the 18th century, thanks to the deposits of giant-crystalline phlogopite, lapis lazuli, scapolite, amazonite and the purest wollastonite in the world. In total, more than 100 minerals have been described in the region, many of which form crystals that are unique in size and shape. The Tazheran alkaline massif is known for its unique mineralization associated with skarns and pegmatites. In a small area not exceeding one square kilometer, 150 minerals have been described, among which are blue diopside, red clinozoisite, purple scapolite, blue calcite, amazonite, corundum, beryl, etc.

Wrangel Island is located on the border of the East Siberian and. Of the geological objects, the most interesting are the Perkatkun rock crystal deposit and the location of the mammoth fauna of the Academy Tundra. The Perkatkunskoye deposit is located in the basin of the middle reaches of the Mamontovaya River, where rock crystals up to 13 cm long are found among the Paleozoic deposits. According to radiocarbon data, the age of tusks and other bone remains of mammoths is 3700–7710 years. A new dwarf subspecies of the mammoth Mammuthus primigenius vrangeliensis is described for the first time on this material. Apparently, Wrangel Island was the last refuge of mammoths who still lived on Earth 3700 years ago.

Volcanoes of Kamchatka are located in the junction zone of the Pacific and Eurasian tectonic plates, characterized by active volcanism. There are 30 active, more than 160 extinct volcanoes, more than 150 thermal and mineral springs. Numerous geysers, hot crater lakes, underwater hydrotherms and other manifestations of post-volcanic activity are common. The following volcanoes are of the greatest interest: Ichinskaya Sopka, Kronotskaya Sopka, Krasheninnikova, Kikhpinych, Bolshoy Semyachik, Avachinskaya Sopka, Mutnovskaya Sopka, Ksudach and Zheltovskaya Sopka.

Among the volcanic edifices, the New Tolbachik Volcanoes, which formed quite recently, during a unique fissure eruption in 1975–1976, deserve special mention. As a result of the eruption, a chain of cinder cones appeared, surrounded by basalt lava flows over an area of ​​about 50 km2. Now the volcanoes are calm, and the whole surrounding area is a real volcanic desert.
Among the most significant geological objects, in addition to volcanoes, on the peninsula are the famous Valley of Geysers and the caldera of the Uzon volcano, where modern hydrothermal-metasomatic changes in rocks are observed and mercury-tin-arsenic mineralization with native sulfur is formed.

The Central Sikhote-Alin is a complex territory. In scientific terms, two geological objects are of the greatest interest - the Silver and Sikhote-Alin paleovolcanoes. Paleovolcano Serebryany, located in the center of the Serebryany volcano-tectonic structure, is a polygenic stratovolcano of Danish age. In the modern relief, it is expressed in the form of an eroded paleovolcano root, which forms an array of granodiorite porphyries. The Sikhote-Alin meteorite craters represent an ellipse of scattering of a unique iron meteor shower that occurred on February 12, 1947. The scattering ellipse includes more than 100 craters created by meteorite fragments with a diameter of 0.5 to 28 m.

There are many unusual intrusions in our country, also unique geological monuments. For example, the ring massif Konder in the Far East. On a satellite image, it looks like a meteorite crater, although its nature is completely different. Ultramafic alkaline rocks of various composition were intruded here in concentric layers.

Most of the deposits of jewelry, ornamental, collection and rare minerals and rocks are also included in the monuments of inanimate nature. Among them, a special place is occupied by the Lilac stone deposit in. This is the only deposit of charoite in the world, and the taiga river Chara gave its name to this amazing stone. Products made of charoite with a thick lilac color are very famous. Worthy of mention are emeralds and other precious stones of the Aduisko-Murzinskaya zone in the Urals, rare and collectible minerals of the Ilmensky mountains of the Urals, the Khibiny and Lovozero massifs on. The amber deposit on the coast of the Baltic Sea near Kaliningrad is also unique, which has no equal in the world. Already in antique time amber from here came to the countries of the Mediterranean. In many museums around the world, one can admire samples of amber from the Primorsky deposit with inclusions of insects and other organisms embalmed in this fossil resin.

On the territory of Russia there are many interesting manifestations of karst, primarily caves. Surprisingly beautiful Kungur ice cave in the Urals. Sintered ice stalactites and stalagmites formed in its grottoes.
Significant areas in the north of Russia are occupied by permafrost. In the coastal cliffs of the northern seas and rivers from the delta of the Lena River to the Kolyma River, giant ice veins stand out among the loess strata. They contain tusks, bones, and sometimes whole carcasses of mammoths and other fossil animals. Some of the sections of the loess-ice strata have been studied in detail and belong to the monuments of the geological past of world significance. Another amazing phenomenon associated with permafrost processes is icing - thick ice covers in river valleys that persist throughout the summer in verdant thickets.

A special place among the geological monuments is occupied by sections of rocks, which served as the basis for the identification of new stratigraphic units and became monuments of world significance. These are sections of the Riphean, the Permian system in the Cis-Urals and the Lower Cambrian on the Lena River. The sections of the Carboniferous near Moscow are unique (the names of their stages and horizons include such settlements as Podolsk, Myachkovo, Gzhel, etc.).

Federal Agency for Higher Education of the Russian Federation

UGLTU

DEPARTMENT OF LANDSCAPE CONSTRUCTION

Abstract on the subject "Landscapes of the Urals"

Subject:

Geological and geomorphological monuments of nature

Yekaterinburg 2009

Plan

1. Geological monuments of nature.

2. Geomorphological monuments of nature.

3. Caves and karst landforms.

Bibliography.

1. Geological monuments of nature

Geological monuments of nature(there are 25 of them in the area) - these are, first of all, outcrops of rare rocks and minerals (for example, rhodonite, or orlets, this primordial Ural stone in the Sysertek region, syenite rocks of Mount Medved-Kamen in Prigorodny); reference stratigraphic sections; ancient mines that have survived from former mining operations (for example, mines for the extraction of gems in the 18th-19th centuries in the Prigorodny district: Fersmanovskie, Stakannitsa, Tarakanitsa, Talyanovskie, Mokrusha, etc.). They also include depleted quarries and mines, often flooded with groundwater and atmospheric precipitation and now turned into pond lakes (for example, Talkov Kamen and Asbest-Kamen lakes in the Sysert region, the Kokuy iron mine (a line of the city of Alapaevsk), a chrome mine and quarry Wolf Pit - in Sysertek); and traces of ancient volcanic activity.

Special monuments - stratotypes - are very interesting from the scientific point of view. In geology, a stratotype is usually called a reference section, where for the first time some stratigraphic unit of a general or regional (local) stratigraphic scale is identified and described. The stratotype serves as a standard for determining the age of deposits, which is necessary to know for mineral prospecting. Work to identify natural monuments of this type is underway in many countries around the world.

In the Sverdlovsk region, natural monuments - stratotypes - include Mount Kashkabash, the Shunut-Kamen rocks, Lozvinskaya pier in the Ivdelsky region (a unique natural outcrop of late Mesozoic rocks with fossil remains of flora), the Belaya Gorka outcrop in the Irbitsky region (Paleozoic rocks come to the surface here , the absolute age of which is estimated at 350-400 million years), the Sokol Stone on the river. Chusovaya in the vicinity of the river. the village of Staroutkinska and some others.

Traces of ancient volcanic activity can be seen on examples of outcrops along the river. Iset in Beloyarsky and Kamensky districts - outcrops of basalt rocks y_s. Kolyutkino i_u with. Beklenishchevo; these include the Volkovskoe outcrop of pillow lavas - an interesting place for excursions (Kamensky district). Augite porphyrites form the rocks of Bolshoi Petropavlovsky Kameshok, located 4 km from the city of Krasnoturinsk, diabases - Mount Azov.

A special place is occupied by paleontological monuments - rock outcrops rich in remains of fossil organisms (prints of leaves of ancient plants or remains of the shells of ancient animals - trilobites, mollusk shells, etc.), the study of which is of great importance for paleoecology - the science of lifestyle and places habitats of plants or animals in ancient times. These are Mount Kashkabash - the location of cephalopods-ammonites, Lozvinskaya pier, where the imprints of the fossil flora McClintocky, as well as the grotto Arakaevsky-1 in the Nizhneserginsky region with the remains of the bones of ancient animals.

Some geological monuments are also botanical. More than a hundred years ago, Academician A.P. Karpinsky was the first to point out the close relationship of plants with a certain type of rocks, their chemical composition. Now a new branch of geobotany is developing - indicator. It studies the vegetation cover as an indicator (indicator) of the composition of soils and underlying rocks, and identifies special plants - ore miners. On many rocks, composed of limestone, rich in calcium, serpentines, magnesium, now rare plants have found a "refuge of life" - endemics and relics.

Some of the geological monuments witnessed historical events or served as a habitat for ancient people who left on the rocks ideographic signs of the Neolithic era that have not yet been completely unraveled - dashes and figurines of animals (such rocks-scribes include in the valley of the Tagil River Baloban, Utes, Sokolii Stone, Karaulny Stone, Kislaya and Zvonkovaya mountains).

2. Geomorphological monuments of nature

Geomorphological monuments of nature(there are 162 of them in the area) are special landforms (the science of geomorphology is engaged in their study), interesting for their appearance, size or origin. They are valuable in scientific terms and as objects of educational excursions. It is sometimes difficult to separate geomorphological monuments from geological ones (for example, rocks can be considered as a geological monument if they are composed of rare rocks, and as a geomorphological object if they are interesting in appearance and size of rock outcrops), often they are both.

Geomorphological monuments of nature include sections of river valleys with a wide development of rocky outcrops (for example, the valley of the Vizhai River, a tributary of the Lozva; the valley of the Chusovaya River; the valley of the Serpa River; the valley of the Kamyshenka River, a tributary of the Iset in the Kamensky District); individual mountain ranges (mountains Sabik in Shalinsky, Belaya in Prigorodny, Vyazovaya in Revdinsky districts) or passes (for example, Didkovsky pass in Karpinsky district). Mountains and passes, as well as sections of river valleys, usually covered with forests, which have an important water-protective, soil-protective and health-improving value, are not only geomorphological monuments, but also botanical ones.

The most significant number of geomorphological monuments (about 100) are formed by rocks - natural outcrops along the banks of rivers (stones, fighters, cliffs) or along the slopes and peaks of mountains (rocks-outliers, shikhans, stone tents). They amaze with their size and quirkiness of outlines. It was not in vain that the people gave them well-aimed names: Stone Falcon (Falcon, Falcon, Saker Falcon) - for the outward resemblance to this proud bird, or Needle, Shilo, Perforated, Grandfather, Frog, Bear, Seven Brothers and One Sister and many others in this kind of like when the name speaks for itself. Sculptor-nature worked hard to create such creations.

Caves and funnels, dry logs and wells, i.e., karst landforms, are very interesting.

3. Caves and karst landforms

If you have ever been in caves, then you are familiar with the feeling of mystery, isolation from the outside world, which create darkness, the immensity of underground corridors and halls, the silence broken by drops of falling water, the slight rustle of bats' wings. Caves equipped for mass visits, such as Novoafonskaya in the Caucasus or Kungurskaya in the Urals, are now illuminated by powerful spotlights. It's spectacular, but there is no more mystery here.

The science of speleology is engaged in the study of caves (from the Greek "speleon" - a cave). This science is closely connected with karst studies. The geographical concept of "karst" comes from the name of the rocky plateau Kras in Yugoslavia (German for "karst"). The term "karst" means any area where surface and underground forms of erosion and dissolution of rocks are developed, similar to the classical forms of the Kras plateau. The area occupied by carbonate (limestone, dolomites, anhydrites) and sulfate (gypsum, various salts) rocks, i.e., rocks that are easily soluble in water, exceeds 40 million square meters. km, which is about a quarter of the earth's land surface.

Caves form if there are karst fissure rocks and moving water; other factors also play a role - local climatic conditions, the nature of vegetation or its absence, relief features, the chemical and mineralogical composition of rocks, etc.

The study of karst is of great practical importance for water supply, various kinds of construction - railways and roads, bridges, dams, tunnels, etc., in the search and extraction of minerals.

Caves are unique and amazing underground creations of nature. Some believe that these are cold, gloomy, lifeless dungeons in which there is nothing interesting. In reality, this is far from the case. Such karst caves as Flint-Mammoth (total length of passages - 341 km!) in the Apalachians in the USA, Hölloch in Switzerland, Eisriesenwelt in Austria, the deepest abysses - Jean-Bernard (1410 m deep) and Pierre-Saint-Martin ( 1350 m) in France. The largest in terms of cubic capacity is the New Athos cave in Georgia - 1.5 million cubic meters. m. Abroad, in the territories of many caves, national parks are organized, and in our country - reserves and natural monuments. They are visited by millions of people.

At the dawn of mankind, caves were used as dwellings. It was relatively warm in them, it was possible to build a fire and escape from wild animals. The caves served as a haven for ancient, now extinct animals (cave bear, cave lion, etc.). In a few caves in the world, drawings of the Paleolithic time (caves in the Pyrenees, in the Urals - Kapova and Ignatievskaya caves in Bashkiria) and Neolithic times have been preserved. Ritual ceremonies were performed here, underground temples, cells arose. Now some caves are used for scientific purposes, for example, for installing instruments that record various natural phenomena (oscillatory movements of the earth's crust, approaching floods, storms, etc.). The distribution of thermal waters and the formation of cave pearls are associated with caves.

The special microclimate of the caves makes it possible to use some of them for the treatment of patients with asthma, allergies and other diseases.

The caves are not at all lifeless; lower plants and animals are found here. Biologists distinguish three main forms of cave animals: those that enter the cave with air currents (flies, butterflies) or with water; cave-loving forms that easily navigate in complete darkness (bats); animals permanently living underground - mostly invertebrates (amphibians, springtails). Due to the lack of sunlight, such species lose their sight, bright color, and, conversely, their sense of touch, smell, and hearing increase. The catalog of typical cave animals includes several hundred species of different classes.

Caves usually consist of many passages (corridors) and halls (grottoes), the sizes of which can be very different ... Thus, the Russian speleologist G.A. (100 - 25 km), large (25 - 1 km), significant (1000-250 km), small (250 - 10 m) and small (less than 10 m). The Ural caves mostly belong to the last three groups.

Underground rivers often flow along the bottom of the caves, there are more numerous lakes. Their regime is determined by the local climate and fluctuations in water levels in nearby water basins. In winter, in temperate latitudes, many underground lakes freeze completely, in spring the level in them rises sharply and some corridors and grottoes are flooded for a long time.

special aesthetic and scientific value caves - drips: stalactites and stalagmites (from the Greek "stalak" - a drop) and other sinter formations (stone waterfalls and curtains, stalagnates, etc.). Painted with chemical impurities in various colors, all these original forms of underground relief give the caves a fabulous beauty (it is not for nothing that such grottoes are called the Skazka Grotto, Fairy Tale, etc.). The formation of sinter forms is associated with the gradual infiltration of water through cracks in carbonate rocks. Even the smallest drop of water is saturated with lime. Drop by drop, water seeps out of the cracks and falls down or runs down the ceiling and walls. Over time, a tubercle forms on the ceiling of the cave, which, growing, turns into an icicle - a stalactite. In some caves, a whole forest of such icicles hangs from the ceiling, their length can reach several meters. Lime is also released from a drop that fell on the floor of the cave. In such cases, limestone cones, or stalagmites, grow upward towards the stalactites. Stalactites and stalagmites fused together form columns - stalagnates.

Sinter formations are not only the colorful decoration of the cave. They serve as a measure of the age of the caves themselves and their individual grottoes, and therefore can be used to determine the absolute age of rocks in a particular area. The intensity of growth of calcite stalactites in various underground cavities and under various natural conditions varies, according to Maksimovich, from 0.03 to 35 mm per year, i.e., extremely slowly. Therefore, if 30-35 cm is broken off from the stalactite, the history of the cave for 10 years is lost!

The stalagmites formed on the floor of the caves are layered in cross section: concentrically located white and dark layers alternate from 0.02 to 0.07 mm thick.

The studies of the Czech speleologist F. Vitasek showed that the growing stalagmite layers represent a semi-annual product, where white tones correspond to the winter period, and dark tones correspond to the summer (warm waters have an increased content of impurities - metal hydroxides and organic compounds). Having counted the number of paired layers in the cut, it is not difficult to determine the age of the stalagmite, as well as the underground cavities in which it was formed. Some caves in Czechoslovakia are 600,000 years old! According to Maksimovich, the age of the stalagmite from the Kizelovskaya (Viasherskaya) cave, which is 70 cm across, is 2500 years.

Ural karst country- one of the largest in Russia. In terms of the number of cavities, it occupies one of the first places; more than 500 cavities are known here. In the last 10 years alone, speleologists of the Urals have discovered and explored about 100 caves and natural mines.

At the origins of the study of karst in Russia and the Urals was V. N. Tatishchev, who encountered this phenomenon on his first visit to the Urals. In the summer of 1720, he heard from local residents about. "peschera" and numerous "ditches". Having explored the Kungur cave, Tatishchev drew attention to the wide underground grottoes, "allegedly great chambers" and "Usk and barely passable wells", he also discovered an underground lake; according to his calculations, the length of the cave is about a verst (now - 5.6 km).

He was also aware of other manifestations of karst: disappearing rivers, underground springs, especially “along the Ireni River and the Irgina River, in the village of Klyuchi, near the town of Sergi.” "... Failure pits (karst sinkholes) and caves do not appear everywhere, but only on flat high mountains," which have "known or gypsum stone" under the surface rocks. This was an important geographical discovery, since Tatishchev's contemporaries explained the origin of underground voids as a consequence of "underground fire", the movements of the "underground mammoth beast", the Flood or the action of human hands.

Since 1952, the Kungur research station has been operating in the Urals, created on the basis of the Ural branch of the karst-speleological station at Moscow University. Now it is under the jurisdiction of the Ural Scientific Center.

In 1964 in Perm at the State University. A. M. Gorky, on the initiative of Professor G. A. Maksimovich (1904-1976), the author of numerous works on karst in general and on the Ural karst in particular, the first in Russia and the sixth in the world Institute of Karst and Speleology was founded (since 1975 - All-Union - VIKS). It brings together scientists from universities and research institutes of the Urals, and also coordinates research on karst and caves in the Crimea, the Caucasus, Podolia, the mountains of Central Asia and other regions of the country.

The main part of the Ural caves and karst manifestations are concentrated on the western slope in the strip of the so-called Cis-Ural marginal foredeep, a meridional elongated tectonic subsidence, composed of a complex of Paleozoic sedimentary rocks, a significant amount of precipitation falls here, mobile underground waters are plentiful and the slopes of the mountains are relatively gentle.

The largest Ural cave - in terms of depth and length of passages - Kutukskaya, or Sumgan-Kutuk, located 30 km east of the village. Nugush (Belaya River basin) is a natural monument in Bashkiria. Its length is more than 10 km, depth is 130 m. Other significant caves are located in the Perm region: Divya on the river. Kolva (9700 m long), Viasherskaya or Kizelovskaya (7115), Kungurskaya (5600), Geologists (3200), Mariinskaya (1000) and Medvezhya (690).

There are few caves in the Sverdlovsk region, most of them are located in the southwest, in the valleys of the middle reaches of the Serga and Chusovaya rivers. There are few caves on the eastern slope of the Ural Mountains, since massive crystalline rocks prevail here and precipitation is half that in the west of this mountainous country. Nevertheless, within the eastern slope of the Middle Urals, mainly in the outcrops of the river valleys of the Alapaevsky, Rezhevsky, Sukholozhsky and Kamensky regions, small and small, "blind" (bag-shaped, that is, they have one entrance - exit) caves are common; most significant - Smolinskaya.

The caves of the Urals have been visited and described for a long time. The first description of the Kungur cave is associated with the names of S. U. Remezov (1703) and V. N. Tatishchev (1736). Kapova Cave in the Southern Urals "near the Belaya River" was described by P.I. Rychkov, a well-known explorer of the nature of the Southern Urals in 1762, and his son N.P. Rychkov, a member of academic expeditions in the Urals, described the Divya cave (1770). In the same year, Academician I.I. Lepekhin visited and described the Kapova and Kungur caves. Kizelovskaya Cave has been known since the middle of the last century. Nowadays, new plans have been drawn up for all these caves, their descriptions are given.

There are few caves in the mountainous part of the Sverdlovsk region, and they are small; almost all of them are declared natural monuments. The largest ones are the most popular for inspection - Druzhba (in the valley of the Serga river, Nizhneserginsky district) and Smolinskaya (in the valley of the Iset river, Kamensky district).

Friendship Cave. It was first described by A. V. Baranovsky, a full member of the Ural Society of Natural Science Lovers (UOLE), in the notes of this society for 1873. In the article “A few words about the so-called Druzhba cave in the Nizhneserginskaya dacha” we read: “The name was given to her by the first visitors and written at the entrance red paint." In this regard, the remark of N. K. Chupin, a well-known historian and public figure of the last century, published in the same place after Baranovsky’s article, is interesting: becomes geographical and does not pass to the people, even though it was written with paint at the entrance, but also carved on the rock. As you can see, N.K. Chupin was mistaken: the name of the cave has been living among the people for more than a hundred years, this cave is constantly visited.

The cave is located in the valley of the river. Sergi, 2 km from the station: Fedotov log. It consists of a system of corridors, grottoes with a total length of 500 m, underground lakes and springs. There are no or almost no calcite sinter formations in the cave. At one time, this circumstance struck Baranovsky, and he gave an almost correct explanation: the cave has a peculiar microclimate, in winter all underground streams and lakes freeze, the walls and ceiling are covered with a layer of ice, and therefore no sinter formations form. At present, sintered bark and small columns are known in the course above the Grotto of the Conscripts. Level groundwater outflows is determined by the level of the river. Sergius, the right tributary of Ufa, so in the spring the cave is significantly flooded. In memory of the original inventor of the cave, the students of Sverdlovsk Pedagogical Institute, who filmed the first plan of the cave in 1958 under the direction of R. B. Rubel, called one of its front grottoes the Baranovsky grotto. There are a number of other underground halls in the cave, among which the most interesting are the three-tiered grotto Etazherka, the caves of Speleologists and Caster (named after the modern French speleologist, explorer of the Pyrenean caves). In winter, due to the sub-zero temperature, many ice stalagmites form in the cave, often of a very bizarre shape. Occasionally bats hibernate in the cave, but there are not many of them.

In the river valley Sergi also includes other caves among the natural monuments, among which the most beautiful, although not very large, is Khatnikovskaya, or Stalactite, Proval Cave, or the Glacier of Mount Orlova, as well as Arakaevsky (Bolshaya and Malaya). All of them are located on the territory of the organized Sredneuralsky Natural Park and are available for viewing.

Smolinskaya cave. The length of its passages is about 500 m, the greatest depth is 32 m. It is located in the valley of the river. Iset, on the section of the path from the village of Beklenishcheva to the village. Smolino, about 20 km southwest of Kamensk-Uralsky. The cave was first mapped by V. G. Olesov, a full member of the UOL. He visited the cave three times: in 1852, 1858 and 1890. On his first visit, Olesov noted the presence of small stalactites in the cave, but then he did not see them. In 1890, a plan for its front was removed. Already then the grottoes Tabor, Altar, Cell were noted.

Olesov suggests that the name of the cave comes from the name of the village, and it "according to legend ... is named after its first inhabitant Smolin, and most likely from a resinous pine tree."

In 1962, students of the Sverdlovsk Pedagogical Institute made a new plan of the cave, more accurate. The cave has a system of corridors and grottoes of various orientations. Its bottom is usually dry, covered with clay, there are no sinter formations. However, during the rainy season the cave becomes very damp, and the clay becomes viscous and slippery. The average air temperature is constant throughout the year and equals 4.5°. A number of names of the grottoes, preserved from the last century, testify to the fact that monks once lived here.

The main attraction of the Smolinskaya cave was the bats that wintered in it. According to Olesov, tens of thousands of these animals wintered here: the wintering was considered the largest in all of Europe! The Leningrad zoologist P.P. Strelkov, who visited the cave in 1956, found at least a thousand wintering mice only in the main, 80-meter course of the cave: about 800 specimens of the pond bat and 200 specimens of the water bat. At the same time, 60 animals were registered in Divya cave, about 100 in Kapova. However, since the 60s, the situation began to change: with the growth of visitors, the number of mice decreased. According to V. N. Bolshakov, only from the end of October 1960 to April 1961, the number of wintering individuals decreased by almost 6 times! Students of the Ural University. D. M. Gorky, who visited the cave in the winter of 1974, counted only 15 animals in it! These were the last animals left from the once largest wintering! Who was responsible for this tragedy? Mostly it turned out to be schoolchildren, amateur tourists, partly students who, out of thoughtlessness and ignorance (the Smolinskaya cave was declared a natural monument back in 1960), took away sleepy animals for collections, and more often for fun. This sad example (according to scientists, the wintering of bats in large sizes cannot be resumed here) once again shows how important it is from childhood to instill a sense of careful, kind attitude towards nature, how necessary it is to promote scientific knowledge about the value of this or that natural object. Apparently, the people who visited the cave did not know about the exceptional benefits of bats, which destroy pests in forests and fields at night, i.e., at a time when other useful animals are sleeping.

We must remember that the caves are not eternal. They originate, develop, and then collapse. The destruction of the cave, in fact, occurs simultaneously with its growth: in some areas it occurs; increasing the size of voids on others - filling. Caves are filled with material of various origins: sinter formations, cave pearls, clay deposits of lakes and rivers, rock fragments from vaults, plant and animal remains, cave snow and ice, etc.

The preservation of caves - their ancient rock paintings, bones of ancient animals, sinter formations, habitats of modern animals and plants (even their simplest forms!) is necessary both for science and for the ecological balance in nature. Caves serve as excellent objects for educational excursions: they can be used to show the work of groundwater, the relationship between climate and water, the features of the geological structure of the area, and much more.

Bibliography

1. Lobanov Yu. E. "Ural caves". Sverdlovsk: Middle Ural book. Publishing house, 1989

2. Pysin K. G. “On the natural monuments of Russia”. M.: Soviet Russia. 1990

3. Arkhipova N. P. "Reserved places of the Sverdlovsk region." - Sverdlovsk: Middle Ural. Book. Publishing house, 1984

- These are natural formations associated with the geological structure and various geological processes. Geological monuments are under state protection.

Geological natural monuments of Ukraine

Geological monuments of nature subdivided into:

• stratigraphic - outcrops of rocks characteristic of a certain geological age;
• paleontological - rocks in the layers of which the remains of animals or plants have been preserved from those distant times when the breed was created;
• mineral-petrographic - outcrops in which rare minerals come to the surface of the earth;
• tectonic - part of the landscape or landscape, by which it is possible to determine the nature of the processes occurring in the earth's crust (skids, folds, salt outcrops, volcanoes, etc.);
• geomorphological - landscapes or their parts, the shape of which was formed under the influence of certain geological processes (, remnants, spits, canyons, etc.);
• landscape - geological formations of particularly important cultural and aesthetic value.

Ukraine has 24 geological monuments of republican significance and 288 of local. Many unique geological formations are protected in protected areas of other categories, for example, in a branch of the Ukrainian steppe reserve, in a complex sight.

Names also testify to significant geological formations (the tracts of Stenka, Gorinsky slopes, Kosovo Gora, Belbek Canyon, mountain-remnant Mangup-Kale, etc.).

Stratigraphic monuments of nature

By importance among geological natural monuments first place is occupied stratigraphic. They give an idea of ​​the sequence of stratification of rocks, spatial relationships and relationships, as well as their relative age, the sequence of events in the geological history of the Earth.

Stratigraphic studies and samples of geological monuments are used to compile and refine geological maps, conduct geological prospecting and exploration of minerals. Classical stratigraphic sights are located in the Donetsk region.

• These are the Kleban-Bitsky offshoots in the Konstantinovsky district on the left bank of the Kleban-Bitsky reservoir, which is a unique offshoot of the Lower Permian deposits.
• The Kravetskaya beam in the same area near the village of Ivanpol belongs to the standards of international importance.

These unique detachments of the Upper Carboniferous deposits are described in detail here and abroad.

It is here that the fossil remains of the trunks of coniferous trees (of the Araucariaceae family) are most fully represented, which are in different stages of transformation into coal. This standard makes it possible to determine the value of deposits, which are found in large quantities in the Permian deposits of the Donets Basin.

There are also stratigraphic monuments in other areas.

Paleontological monuments of nature

Very valuable for science paleontological monuments of nature. Paleontological data are used in the process of studying the physical and geographical conditions of the Earth's geological past and the formation of minerals.

Paleozoology and paleobotany, which study the animal and plant world of past epochs, allow geologists to determine the relative age of rocks, to specify periods in the geological history of the Earth.

There are only 3 paleontological monuments of republican significance in Ukraine, but each of them reflects the greatness and originality of nature of bygone times: the life of the animal and plant world of the ancient Tethys ocean.

Separate groups and solitary petrified trees are still found in sheds near the village of Liman, Zmievsky district, Kharkiv region.

• In the Starobeshevsky district near the village of Novokaterynivka, Donetsk region, on the left bank of the Kalmius River, limestone shedding strikes with an abundance of fossil marine fauna. According to the deviations of three limestone horizons, which have a thickness of 1 to 6 meters, one can trace the alternation of fluctuations in the earth's crust, when the seabed rose and then fell. In the sediments, which are tens and hundreds of millions of years old, the remains of marine fauna have been preserved, which formed geological rocks of organic origin.

Among the geological monuments of nature of local importance, two valuable paleontological monuments are protected in Zaporozhye.

• This is a section of the coast of the Sea of ​​​​Azov on the outskirts of Berdyansk, which is a place of ancient landslides, formed several terraces. Skeletons of the southern elephant and other large animals of past geological eras have been found here.
• The same skeletons were found in the Lugovsky sand pit on the outskirts of the city of Tokmak.

Mineral and petrographic sights

In mineralogical, geochemical, stratigraphic, tectonic, volcanological studies of minerals are widely used mineral and petrographic sights. The main tasks of the sciences of petrography and mineralogy are the description and systematics of minerals, the clarification of the conditions, laws and processes of formation of both their individual species and entire mineral groups. Therefore, monuments are of practical importance for many sectors of the national economy, for the effective use of mineral raw materials and the establishment of signs and conditions for their discovery.

There are many interesting sights in Zaporozhye.

Korsak-Mogila is a complex of 6 stone outcrops of the Azov crystalline massif. Quartz remnants here contain crystals of magnetic iron ore.

• Stone Grave in the Kuibyshev region is one of the relic remains of iron-silicon formations with granite ledges on the surface of the earth.
• In the Kirovohrad region, on the banks of the Southern Bug, there are outcrops of graphite.
• In Transcarpathia - exits to the surface of marble deposits.
• The monuments above the Nagolchik River in the Antratsitovsky district in the Voroshilovgrad region are striking in their exoticism - the sharp Hillock, the Nagolchensko-Shevtsovsky Hillock and the Golden Hillock, where quartz veins with various metal sulfides are found in deposits.
• In the city of Truskavets, Lviv region, during the development of a quarry, various deposits were discovered, including relatively rare ore minerals: hapenite, ephalerite, and cerussite. A very rare mineral brunkenite was found here, which is a complex type of lead sulfide. This is the second brunkenite deposit in the world.
• On the outskirts of Skole, on the left bank of the Opor River, in a quarry where light gray sandstone of the Paleocene was mined, a new mineral, a variety of glauconite, was found for the first time. In honor of the place of discovery, it is called scolitis.

Tectonic monuments of nature

Tectonic monuments of nature give us the opportunity to get acquainted with the history of fluctuations of the earth's crust, its movements and changes, which is reflected in the nature of the occurrence of rocks, in the modern structure of the earth's crust. They are concentrated mainly in the mountains. There are only two of them of republican significance.

Several dozen volcanoes of various sizes played an important role in the formation of the modern relief of the Kerch Peninsula.

Some tectonic monuments of local significance are also quite interesting and original. One of them - Romen stock(Sumy region) - is a salt dome of Devonian salt, raised from the deep layers to the surface. The dome fits perfectly into the surrounding calm relief. Except table salt gypsum and diabase come to the surface here. There are many such exposures to the surface of salt stocks in Transcarpathia in the Solotvyno region.

In the Ivano-Frankivsk region, on the territory of the city of Yaremche, horizontally located deposits form an elbow bend, so clearly defined that it seems that this is the work of man. The tectonic monuments include a mountain near the city of Mukachevo, on top of which there is an ancient architectural monument - Mukachevo castle. This mountain-remnant of the Neogene age rises majestically in the foothills among a wide plain. The same remnant of volcanic origin is located in Khust, Transcarpathian region. At its top, only the ruins of the fortress have been preserved.

© OCR - A. V. Belikovich, A. V. Galanin, O. M. Afonina, and I. I. Makarova Published according to the text: Belikovich A.V., Galanin A.V., Afonina O.M., Makarova I.I. Flora of specially protected territories of Chukotka. Vladivostok: BSI FEB RAN, 2006. 260 p.

Regional geological and water monuments of nature

Geological monument of nature "ANYUYSKY"

The monument is located in the eastern part of the Bilibinsky district, the area of ​​the Monni River (the basin of the Bolshoi Anyui River). The area is 10.5 thousand hectares. The monument is an extinct conical trachybasaltic stratovolcano of the Holocene age with a diameter of 480 m and its surroundings, the height of which is 90-120 meters. A fissure lava flow 56 km long is associated with it (Fig. 23). Monument of natural disasters. The last volcanic eruption, according to geological data (Ustiev, 1961), occurred about 500 years ago. The highest point of the volcano crater is 1100 m, the base of the crater is at an altitude of 600 m. Erupted lava flows stretch down the northern slope in a narrow strip, and then spread widely to the west for more than 30 km along the ancient valley. Directly from the south, Mount Vulkannaya adjoins the volcano - the highest elevation in a small massif composed of acidic crystalline rocks.

There is only one work on the vegetation cover of the monument (Petrovsky, Plieva, 1984). The area is distinguished by its forest-tundra character, since the territory of the protected area is located in the contact zone of larch sparse forests penetrating along the valleys of the right tributaries of the river. Big Anyui to the middle part of the Anyui Range, with mountain tundra dominating most of the range. The main types of ecosystems found here are as follows:

summit surfaces of mountains, low ridges and individual hills with patchy and patchy dryad tundras;

stony placers with open vegetation groups and lichen-moss tundras;

southern slopes of mountains with rubbly spotted and continuous dryad-forb tundras;

northern slopes of mountains with shrub and shrub-moss-lichen tundras;

cedar and dwarf thickets along mountain slopes with alder forests along runoff hollows;

slopes of narrow river valleys. Ustiev and its tributaries with larch woodlands;

complexes of herbaceous alder and willow forests around lakes formed as a result of springing by frozen lava flows of surface water runoff;

brook complexes of willow and shrub larch forests along streams and rivers;

floodplain terraces. Ustiev with shrubs, meadows and swamps;

river floodplain Ustiev with chozen, willow and pebble.

Notes: From a botanical point of view, it is most interesting to compare the composition of the flora in lava flows and in areas where there are no igneous rocks. Specific flora is confined to the substrates formed as a result of a volcanic eruption. These are 28 pioneer species of colonization of volcanic lavas and tuffs (13% of the total number of identified species). These are mainly mountain arctic and arctoalpine species, as well as several hypoarcto-mountainous species. In the lower parts of the cone, where significant accumulations of snow form in winter, Delphinium chamissonis, Papaver microcarpum, Saxifraga hyperborea are noted in a noticeable abundance. Hierochloe alpina, Luzula confusa, Saxifraga punctata are very common on lava flows, while Poa glauca, Dicentra peregrina, Ermania parryoides, and Artemisia glomerata are constantly found on tuff screes along the slopes of the cone. Other pioneer species: Trisetum spicatum, Poa pseudoabbreviata, Festuca brachyphylla, Luzula confuse, Salix phlebophylla, Silene stenophylla, Minuartia rubella, Thalictrum alpinum, Cardamine bellidifolia, Draba lonchocarpa, Saxifraga funstonii, S. nivalis, Oxytropis czukotica, Diapensia obovata, Androsace ochotensis , Artemisia furcata, Crepis chrysantha, Dryopteris fragrans, Rhodiola atropurpurea. This composition of species can be considered random and due to the introduction of seeds from neighboring plots.

plant communities(Petrovsky, Plieva, 1984):

16% - open vegetation groups on scree slopes of the volcano (Diapensia obovata, Saxifraga funstonii, Androsace ochotensis);

27% - pioneer vegetation of lava flows (Hierochloe alpina, Luzula confusa, Saxifraga punctata);

5% - combinations of rubbly spotted and clump dryad, forb-dryad tundras (Dryas puntata, Carex rupestris, Potentilla uniflora, Minuartia rubella, Salix phlebophylla, Silene stenophylla, Anemone sibirica) on the top surfaces of mountains, low ridges, dry slopes;

1% - combinations of open vegetation groups and lichen-moss tundras (Woodsia ilvensis, Potentilla anachoretica, Potentilla elegans, Carex podocarpa, Lloydia serotina) on rocks and stony placers of slopes;

14% - combinations of shrub-moss-lichen and sedge-forb tundras (Cassiope tetragona, Minuartia macrocarpa, Diapensia obovata, Ledum decumbens, Novosieversia glacialis, Parrya nudicaulis, Saxifraga nelsoniana, Carex lugens, Valeriana capitata, Saussurea tilesii) on the northern slopes and shrubs - forb tundra (Vaccinium uliginosum, Empetrum subholarcticum, Arctous alpina, Dianthus repens, Dracocephalum palmatum, Arenaria capillaris) on the southern slopes;

9% - combinations of dwarf pine thickets, larch subalpine sparse sparse with mountain dwarfs and alder thickets with dwarf pine (Pinus pumila, Alnus fruticosa, Betula middendorffii, Lycopodium pungens, Vaccinium vitis-idaea, V. uliginosum subsp. microphyllum, Arctous alpina, Orthilia obtusata, Polygonum tripterocarpum) along damp runoff troughs on slopes;

15% - larch woodlands and sparse forests (Larix cajanderi, Betula exilis, Ledum decumbens, Pyrola grandiflora, Salix saxatilis, Pedicularis labradorica, Calamagrostis neglecta, Arctagrostis arundinacea) along the sides of the narrow valleys of the river protected from the winds. Ustiev and its tributaries;

3% - combinations of herbaceous alder and willow forests (Alnus fruticosa, Salix boganidensis, S. anadyrensis, S. pulchra) around lakes formed as a result of damming of surface water runoff by frozen lava flows;

1% - combinations of wet meadows, sedge and sphagnum bogs (Arctophila fulva, Rubus chamaemorus, Salix fuscescens) in thermokarst ditches and subsidence;

1% - combinations of shrubs, willows and meadows (Spiraea stevenii, Pentaphylloides fruticosa, Rosa acicularis, Carex melanocarpa) on dry areas of floodplain terraces;

3% - combinations of swampy shrubs, sedge and sedge-shrub-sphagnum bogs (Carex rotundata, C. stans, C. appendiculata, Eriophorum polystachion, E. russeolum, Chamaedaphne calyculata, Tofieldia pusilla) along the depressions of the floodplain terraces;

4% - brook complexes of willows and shrub larch forests (Salix pulchra, S. krylovii, S. hastata, Ribes triste) along streams and upper reaches of rivers;

1% - floodplain complexes of willows, chozen forests and meadows along riverbed alluviums (Chosenia arbutifolia, Salix alaxensis, S. schwerinii, S. anadyrensis, Pulsatilla dahurica, Chamerion latifolium, Artemisia borealis) on the river. Ustiev.

Biodiversity: in the flora of protected areas there are 218 species of vascular plants (Petrovsky, Plieva, 1984).

Protected species: rare plant species in the territory of the protected area are not observed.

Geological monument of nature "KEKUR"

Plant communities of protected areas(Galanin A.V. Geobotanical descriptions (12) of the area of ​​the village of Apapelgino for 1974. Archive of the BSI FEB RAS, unpublished data):

70% - complexes of tuberous dwarf shrubs, willows, cassiopeia moss-lichen tundras (Betula exilis, Ledum decumbens, Salix pulchra, S. sphenophylla, S. reticulata, S. reptans, Carex lugens, Vaccinium vitis-idaea, Arctous alpina, Empetrum subholarcticum, Eriophorum vaginatum, Senecio atropurpureus, Petasites frigidus, Parrya nudicaulis, Luzula nivalis, Cassiope tetragona);

30% - complexes of tussock sedge-cotton grass, sedge-shrub tundras (Betula exilis, Ledum decumbens, Salix fuscescens, Polygonum tripterocarpum, Carex lugens, C. stans, Vaccinium vitis-idaea, Eriophorum vaginatum, E. polystachion, Calamagrostis holmii, Arctagrostis latifolia , Valeriana capitata).

Biodiversity: according to expert data, more than 60 species of vascular plants grow on the territory of protected areas (see descriptions).

Geological monument of nature "ELGYGYTGYN LAKE"

Rice. 25. Geological monument of nature "Lake Elgygytgyn". The monument is located in the northern part of the Anadyr region along the border with the Chaun region at an altitude of about 500 m above sea level. sea, coordinates 67°29"32"N. 172 ° 04 "33" W. The area is 350 hectares. The lake basin has a regular rounded shape with a diameter of about 17 km. Its formation occurred in newest stage geological history of the Anadyr Plateau, approximately 3 - 5 million years ago (Bely, 1993). The site itself includes the lake itself as a unique geological object (Fig. 25), the origin of which (meteorite crater or endogenous explosion) is the subject of discussion (Bely, 1982). The fauna of the vicinity of the lake is represented by species of large land mammals typical of Chukotka, including the population of bighorn sheep, listed in the Red Book of Russia (Vaskovskii et al., 1988; Zheleznov, 1994). Of the birds, a number of “Red Book” species have been noted here (Nature of the Lake Depression ..., 1993). The ichthyocenosis of the lake is extremely poor, but is unique in its endemism and relict character (Chereshnev and Skopets, 1993). Three species of charr live in the lake, including two endemic ones. On the shore of the lake there are archaeological sites (sites of ancient people). The maximum depth in the center of the lake is 169 m.

According to the latest research by scientists, the lake is of global importance. The proposed object was included in the order of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 23.04.94. No. 572-r "On the formation of new specially protected areas of the Russian Federation in 1994-2005" under the name of the Elgygytgynsky National Park. The feasibility study was developed by the Research Center "Chukotka" FEB RAS (Belikovich, Galanin, 1994).

The vegetation of the monument has been studied well (Kozhevnikov, 1978, 1985, 1993; Belikovich, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1994; Belikovich, Galanin, 1989, 1992).

Type of ecosystems of protected areas - typical hypoarctic tundras in the zone of southern hypoarctic tundras. The main ecosystems are associated with abiotic differences in the environment:

flat mountain tops and upland terraces with cryogenic relief and windblown clump and spotted tundras;

moderately steep solifluction slopes with sinter hillocks and characteristic banded shrub (most often dryad) tundras;

slightly sloping solifluction terraces, wide runoff hollows on the slopes, with peaty-humus substrate and complexes of meadows and tubercular shrub tundras;

gentle trails of slopes and saddles with close permafrost and marshy sedge and hummocky cottongrass tundras, fragments of moss swamps;

nival ecotopes in places of snowfields in slope bends, ledges of terraces, erosion troughs, floodplain terraces of streams, alluvial fans;

pebbles of the ancient valley of the river. Enmyvaam with sparse herb communities and silty channels;

floodplains of streams with fragments of willows and sparse grass meadows.

Notes: The lake has a cooling effect on the surrounding vegetation, in connection with which the participation of steppe groups and meadows in the vegetation cover is reduced. On the eastern shore of the lake, there is the “Pink Rocks” tract, which is an elongated rock mass composed of andesites interspersed with plagioclase and labradorite. Relic plant species Pulsatilla multifida subsp. nutalliana, Carex supina subsp. spaniocarpa. The only stepoid in the area was also found here - between steep rocks on a steep crumbling rubble area. In addition to the above species, Artemisia kruhseana, Poa glauca, Potentilla stipularis, P. nivea, P. arenosa, Carex rupestris, Antennaria monocephala, Trisetum molle, Dryas punctata, Selaginella sibirica, Saxifraga funstonii, Androsace septentrionalis, Festuca brachyphylla, Polemonium boreale, Myosotis asiatica, Arnica iljinii.

In the region of the lake Elgygytgyn, despite its continental position, has enhanced oceanic signs of vegetation, which proves the ratio of continental and oceanic elements of flora and vegetation (Kozhevnikov, 1979, p. 118). This is confirmed by other observations: finds in the surface layers of soil trunks of large willows, which are currently absent here, geomorphological changes over the past 100 years according to the descriptions of early researchers. The increase in the oceanic climate in the lake area and the corresponding change in the vegetation cover is due to the elevation of the area above sea level.

plant communities(Kozhevnikov, 1993, Belikovich, 1988; area after: Belikovich, Galanin, 1989):

15% - combinations of clump and spotted dryad-lichen, forb-dryad, cobresia tundras (Salix phlebophylla, Pedicularis lanata, Artemisia furcata, Potentilla elegans, Eritrichium aretioides, Minuartia arctica, Potentilla uniflora, Arenaria capillaris, Poa pseudoabbreviata, Cardamine bellidifoserpyllifolia , Kobresia myosuroides, Crepis nana) on horizontal rocky surfaces - flat mountain tops, upland terraces, tuff screes;

20% - combinations of spotted shrubby, dryad-forb, Cassiopeia moss-lichen tundras (Cassiope tetragona, Rhododendron parvifolium, Senecio resedifolus, Ermania parryoides, Silene stenophylla, Dryas octopophylla, Crepis nana, Potentilla elegans, Androsace ochotensis) of gentle and medium steep slopes ;

9% - combinations of meadows and tubercular shrub tundras (Artemisia arctica, Aconitum delphinipholium, Arctagrostis arundinacea, Carex podocarpa, Festuca altaica, Luzula multiflora, Senecio tundricola, Thalictrum alpinum, Veratrum oxysepalum) on slightly inclined solifluction terraces, wide runoff troughs on slopes, areas plumes with a humus substrate;

40% - combinations of sedge-cotton grass-shrub tussock tundra and sedge moss bogs (Eriophorum vaginatum, E. callitrix, E. polystachion, Pedicularis pennellii, P. albolabiata, Carex rotundata, C. lugens, Salix fuscescens, S. reticulata, Senecio atropurpureus , Ledum decuumbens, Andromeda polifolia, Vaccinium uliginosum, V. minus) along gentle trails of slopes, on saddles, upland terraces and the old lacustrine terrace of the lake;

1% - combinations of forb, dryad tundras, including stepoids (Potentilla stipularis, Artemisia kruhseana, Myosotis asiatica, Saxifraga eschscholtzii, Papaver lapponicum, Senecio jacuticus, Woodsia ilvensis, Dianthus repens) of rocky ledges along the sides of valleys and mountain slopes;

9% - combinations of nival cassiopeia-moss, willow and snowy sparse grass tundras (Salix polaris, Cassiope tetragona, Carex tripartita, Phippsia algida, Koenigia islandica, Saxifraga hyperborea, Eritrichium villosum, Primula tschuktschorum, Hierochloe pauciflora) in places of snowfields in slope bends, ledges terraces, erosional hollows, non-floodplain terraces of streams, alluvial cones;

1% - forb meadows (Arctagrostis latifolia, Carex misandra, C. atrofusca, Saxifraga cernua, Ranunculus affinis, Anemone sibirica, Polygonum viviparum, Valeriana capitata) on ground squirrels;

3% - combinations of hairy meadows, clumps of willows, moss sedge, grassy and wet silty sparse grass communities (Androsace ochotensis, Empetrum subholarcticum, Salix tschuktschorum, S. saxatilis, Pleuropogon sabinii, Polemonium boreale, Beckwithia chamissonis, Saussurea tilesii, Lagotis minor, Pedicularis hirsuta ) on the pebbles of the ancient valley of the river. Enmyvaam;

2% - combinations of fragments of willow forests and sparse grass meadows (Salix alaxensis, S. krylovii, Deschampsia borealis, Chamerion latifolium, Equisetum variegatum, Stellaria fischerana, Potentilla hyparctica, Eutrema edwardsii, Cardamine blaisdellii, Trollius membranostylus, Polemonium acutiflorum, Parnassia kotzebuei, Polemonium acutiflorum, Parnassia kotzebuei, Poa) along the floodplains of the streams.

Biodiversity: The flora of the region includes 249 species (Kozhevnikov, 1978; Belikovich, 1990).

Protected species: Over 100 species of the region are rare or found singly. Koeleria asiatica, Carex amblyorhyncha, C. holostoma, Tofieldia pusilla, Saxifraga setigera, Trollius chartosepalus, Corydalis arctica, Astragalus tugarinovii can be considered rare species. Festuca baffinensis, which is extremely sporadically found in Chukotka, is common here - around the lake it grows in places where andesitic tuffs come out, on dry rubble chicken tundra, grows luxuriantly near remnant rocks, on ground squirrels (Yurtsev et al., 1973). Most of the flora of the site is represented by species that took part in transcontinental migrations through Beringia in the Pleistocene. Endemes and species listed in the Red Book of the RSFSR are not registered in the area.

Water monument of nature "ACCHEN"

Rice. 26. Water monument of nature "Lake Achchen". It is located in the southern part of the Providensky district, on the coast of the Gulf of Anadyr, 50 km from the village of Nunlingran (Fig. 26). The area is 9 thousand hectares. The monument is a unique lake - a spawning place for valuable species of fish, including sockeye salmon, chinook salmon, pink salmon, loaches, vendace (by its size, fat content and fatness, the vendace of the lake is a unique form not found in any reservoir of Chukotka and Kolyma). Lake Achchen is a lagoon-type lake. It is a laced sea lagoon, separated from the sea by a sand and pebble bridge, desalinated by numerous small streams and rivers flowing into the lake. The greatest depth of the lake is 27 m.

In the southern part, the sea comes close to the lake. It is separated by a pebble spit 150 m wide at its narrowest point. This spit is low relative to the water level in the lake and the sea, and during the period of maximum water levels in the lake and strong storms on the narrowest section of the pebble spit, sea water surges, overflowing through the spit, fall into the lake . From the south, the lake is connected to the sea by a channel 1 km long.

The protected area is located in the subzone of the northern (typical) hypoarctic tundra. Main ecosystems: mountain slopes with patchy, patchy and full-cover tundras; runoff hollows with complexes of nival tundras and lawns; valleys of streams and small rivers with sparse grass meadows, willow forests, lawns and nival tundras; the lower parts of the slopes of the mountains with trains with tubercular and hummocky sedge-cotton grass tundras; marine pebbly spit separating a lagoon-type lake from Anadyr Bay, with complexes of halophytic sparse grass meadows and leimus meadows in a wide part.

Plant communities of protected areas(according to preliminary and archival data):

24% - combinations of sparse clump, clump and spotted forb, shrub tundras (Dryas punctata, Salix sphenophylla, Festuca brachyphylla, F. brevissima, Carex misandra, Minuartia biflora, M. arctica, Anemone sibirica, Cardamine bellidifolia, Saxifraga serpyllifolia, S. flagellaris subsp . setigera, Potentilla elegans) on the near-top parts of the slopes;

1% - steppe forb, dryad-forb and fescue-kobresia tundras (Dryas punctata, Festuca altaica, Kobresia simpliciuscula, Carex melanocarpa, Claytonia arctica, Arenaria capillaries, Silene acaulis, S. stenophylla, Erysimum pallasii, Ermania parryoides, Saxifraga funstonii) southern heated convex sections of slopes and terraces;

32% - combinations of whole-cover shrub, dryad, dryad-sedge moss-lichen tundras (Dryas punctata, Salix arctica, S. phlebophylla, Betula exilis, Vaccinium uliginosum, V. vitis-idaea, Arctous alpina, Carex scirpoidea, Luzula tundricola, Thalictrum alpinum , Parrya nudicaulis, Acomastylis glacialis, Arctous erythrocarpa, Oxygraphis glacialis) along the slopes of different exposures;

4% - combinations of nival forb, forb-sedge-moss and willow-moss tundras and lawns (Salix polaris, S. reticulata, S. phlebophylla, S. chamissonis, Carex podocarpa, Oxyria dygina, Koenigia islandica, Ranunculus nivalis, R. pygmaeus , R. sulphureus, Poa malacantha, P. paucispicula, Phippsia algida, Luzula unalashkensis, Dodecatheon frigidum) along erosion ravines, hollows, small streams, under ledges of upland terraces;

2% - combinations of sparse grass meadows, willows, lawns and nival willow tundras (Salix alaxensis, S. glauca, S. pulchra, S. nummularia, Spiraea stevenii, Allium shoenoprasum, Lloydia serotina, Leymus interior, Arctagrostis arundinacea, Festuca altaica, Pleuropogon sabinei , Veratrum oxysepalum, Rumex acetosa subsp. pseudoxyria, Polygonum tripterocarpum, Anemone richardsonii, Rubus arcticus, Lagotis minor) in the valleys of streams and small rivers;

31% - tuberculate shrub-forb moss-lichen tundras (Salix pulchra, S. saxatilis, S. reptans, Betula exilis, Carex lugens, Alopecurus alpinus, Arctagrostis latifolia, Eriophorum vaginatum, Tofieldia coccinea, T. pusilla, Polygonum ellipticum, Clalytonia acutifolia ) lower parts of mountain slopes and trails of slopes;

35% - combinations of tussock shrub-cotton grass-sedge tundras, marshy sedge-moss tundras and sedge bogs (Salix fuscescens, Eriophorum polystachion, E. medium, E. russeolum, E. triste, Pedicularis oederi, P. pennelii, Carex rariflora, C . rotundata, Ranunculus pallasii) along flat areas of terraces and trails of mountain slopes;

2% - combinations of moss forb and shrub tundras (Petasites frigidus, Phippsia algida, Empetrum subholarcticum, Salix rotundifolia, Carex glareosa, Salix ovalifolia, S. glauca, S. alaxensis) along the banks and old lacustrine pebbles;

2% - halophytic sparse grass and shiksha-leimus meadows (Arctopoa eminens, Leymus villosissimus, Empetrum subholarcticum, Deshampsia paramushirensis, Puccinellia phryganodes) on a pebbly spit;

2% - halophytic shiksha-grass-forb marsh tundras (Salix ovalifolia, Calamagrostis deschampsioides, Puccinellia angustata, Silene acaulis, Armeria arctica) in wide parts of the pebble spit.

Biodiversity: about 270 species of vascular plants have been identified in the area.

Protected species: On a lake Locations of a rare species of moss Leptopterigynandrum austro-alpinum are known in Achchen. It is a rocky and tundra moss with a disjunctive range, growing on rather wet surfaces of limestone rocks and on gravelly substrates in mountain tundras. A rare species of large-seeded drema Gastrolychnis macrosperma, club moss Lycopodium clavatum subsp. monostachyon, arctic reed grass Calamagrostis arctica, and Pleuropogon sabinii, rare for the Bering Sea coast (Yurtsev et al., 1975b). Also recorded are Maksimovich’s reed Scirpus maximowiczii, found on wet spotted and small sedge tundras of mountain saddles, cobresia Kobresia sibirica, K. simpliciuscula, and green grasshopper Coeloglossum viride from the fam. Orchids (Yurtsev et al., 1973a).

5 rare species of mosses were found in the protected areas: Encalypta vulgaris, Kiaeria starkei, Leptopterigynandrum austro-alpinum, Racomitrium afoninae, Seligeria polaris.

Water monument of nature "RAUCHUAGYTGYN"

Rice. 27. Water monument of nature "Lake Rauchuagytgyn". It is located in the southern part of the Chaunsky district, in the upper reaches of the Rauchua River, not far from the village of Baranikha (Fig. 27). Area 573 ha. The monument is a unique lake of moraine genesis with its surroundings. The terrain is sharply dissected, rocky. Classical glacial trough valleys, glacial moraine and hydroglacial formations are typical. The lake is located at an altitude of 593 m. The length of the lake is 4.3 km, the width is 1.8 km, the depth is 15-20 m. The lake is flowing. The flow of the Rauchua River is regulated. The lake area is characterized by an inversion of air temperature in winter (an increase in air temperature with height). The lake was formed as a result of the damming of the valley by moraine deposits. The confinement of the lake to the junction of the volcanogenic belt with mesozoids gives the area a colorful multi-colored hue. Wild deer, bighorn sheep, brown bear, wolverine, etc. live in the vicinity of the lake. The vegetation of the river basin. Rauchua was studied in detail by A.V. Galanin (1977, 1989, 2005), there are data on floristic finds (Yurtsev et al., 1973a). The protected area belongs to the Western Chukotka district of the Continental Chukotka subprovince of the Arctic floristic region, the subzone of the southern hypoarctic tundra (Yurtsev, 1973). The area is located 70 km southwest of the southern tip of the Chaun Bay and is characterized by a moderately dissected mountainous relief. Separate mountain ranges exceed 1300 m above sea level and have alpine-type features. Most of the hills are 600–1100 m high with flat tops and strongly terraced slopes. The peaks of neighboring hills are connected with each other by saddles in chains and large massifs, which are interspersed with wide mountain ravines. Numerous streams and rivers usually dry up in the second half of summer.

The slopes of the hills quite sharply turn into extensive loamy plumes. In places where the slope - plume there are leveled areas - subslope terraces, which, despite good drainage, are intensively moistened due to the inflow of groundwater from the slope of the hill. On the plumes there are gravel ridges 2 to 10 m wide and up to 0.6 m high, oriented down the slope, and in some places, usually in the middle and lower parts, there are wide (up to 20–30 m) trough-shaped runoff hollows. Some of the highest peaks have remnants, near which a large amount of coarse clastic material is observed. On the steep slopes of the hills, rubble and stony screes are quite common. The area as a whole is dominated by acidic sedimentary and igneous rocks: granitoids, sandstones, and shales. Basic rocks are absent here. In the valley of the river flowing out of the lake, floodplain terraces are well expressed, turning into a floodplain with numerous swamps and lakes.

The main types of protected area ecosystems are as follows: peaks, near-top ridges and parts of steep southern slopes and upland terraces with clump and fragmentary gravel tundra; convex sections of mountain slopes of hills of southern exposure with steppe tundras; extensive upland terraces and slopes of northern exposure with whole-cover shrub moss-lichen tundras; slopes and upland terraces at an altitude of 700–900 m a.s.l. seas with patchy forb-shrub moss-lichen tundras; runoff hollows on slope plumes with tussocky sedge-cotton grass tundras in combination with low-growing willows; nival tundras and lawns along streams, places of snowfields, narrow erosive; above-floodplain terraces of the river and fragments of the lakeside terrace with dwarf birch, sedge-moss tundras, polygonal swamps with bulgunnyakhs; old pebbles of vast floodplain terraces of the river. Rauchua with dwarf shrubs, patchy and patchy forb-shrub tundras; floodplain complexes of sparse-grass meadows on pebbles and reed meadows on silted sand deposits in the floodplain of the river. Rauchua in the place where it flows out of the lake.

Notes: Not far from the protected area is the border between the basins of the Kolyma, Anadyr and rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean. The vegetation cover of the lake area is the southern variant of the subzone of the southern hyporactic tundra, which will be replaced by forest tundra literally in a couple of tens of kilometers (Petrovsky, Plieva, 1988, 2000). In this regard, many boreal species have been recorded in the flora of protected areas. These species are found mainly in swamps, willow forests, and partially in floodplain-above-floodplain ecotopes. In floodplains and on floodplain terraces of the river. Rauchua found fragments of reed meadows - full-fledged boreal meadows, located here at the northern limit of their distribution.

Plant communities of protected areas(Galanin, 1977):

19% - combinations of clump and fragmentary forb-dwarf shrub gravelly, clump and spotted forb-lichen and dryad-lichen tundras (Dryas punctata, Salix phlebophylla, S. tschuktschorum, Viccinium vitis-idaea, Crepis chrysantha, Silene stenophylla, Oxytropis czukotica, Artemisia furcata , Arnica frigida, Ermania parryoides, Selaginella sibirica, Polygonum laxmanii, Potentilla uniflora, Festuca brachyphylla, Arctous alpina, Hierochloe alpina, Anemone sibirica) on the tops and near-top parts of steep slopes, screes of southern and southwestern exposure and upland terraces;

3% - combinations of clump and fragmentary forb-dwarf shrub gravelly, forb-lichen steppe tundras (Dracocephalum palmatum, Dianthus repens, Erysimum pallasii, Festuca auriculata, Potentilla nivea, Dryas punctata, Minuartia rubella, Carex rupestris, C. obtusata, C. pediformis, Androsace bungeana, Silene repens, Thymus oxyodonthus, Potentilla arenosa, Draba cinerea) on convex mountain slopes of southern exposure hills;

15% - combinations of forb-shrub and willow moss-lichen tundras (Salix pulchra, S. tschuktschorum Arctagrostis latifolia, Carex lugens, Ledum decumbens, Vaccinium uliginosum, Betula exilis, Eriophorum vaginatum, E. brachyantherum, Gentiana glauca, Senecio frigidus, Pedicularis lapponica , P. oederi) extensive upland terraces and slopes of northern and northeastern exposure;

15% - combinations of spotted forb-shrub moss-lichen and lichen tundras (Betula exilis, Ledum decumbens, Salix sphenophylla, S. phlebophylla, Carex lugens, Pedicularis amoena, Anemone sibirica, Polygonum ellipticum, P. tripterocarpum, Androsace ochotensis, Vacsumcinium uligino, Cassiope tetragona, Poa alpigena, P. malacantha, Deschampsia brevifolia, Pedicularis adamsii, Gentiana algida, Saxifraga nivalis, S. foliolosa, Petasites glacialis, Saussurea tilesii, Oxygraphis glacialis) on slopes and upland terraces at an altitude of 700–900 m a.s.l. seas;

12% - combinations of raw forb-shrub eutrophic, willow-sedge-moss and forb-shrub moss tundras (Salix saxatilis, S. reticulata, Rhododendron parvifolium, Andromeda polipholia, Parrya nudicaulis, Claytonia acutifolia, Polygonum ellipticum, Luzulagotis nivalis, Lagotis minor, Carex lugens, C. misandra, C. algida, C. williamsii, Pedicularis oederi, Thalictrum alpinum, Saxifraga hirculus, S. hieracifolia, Chrysosplenium alternifolium, Melandrium apetalum, Thalictrum minus, Juncus biglumis, Corydalis arctica, Tofieldia coccinea) on subslope terraces and alluvial fans and along inter-ridge depressions of hill slope plumes;

18% - combinations of tussocky sedge-cotton grass-shrub, sedge-cotton grass-forb tundra and low-growing willow forests (Eriophorum vaginatum, E. polystachion, E. russeolum, E. medium, Rubus chamaemorus, Carex lugens, C. stans, Calamagrostis holmii, Arctagrostis latifolia, Salix pulchra, S. fuscescens, S. saxatilis, S. krylovii, Betula exilis, Senecio atripurpureus, Ledum decumbens, Saxifraga hieracifolia) along runoff troughs on plumes of mountain slopes;

8% - combinations of nival tundra, lawns, brook mixed grass shrubs and mixed grass and moss shrub tundra (Salix pulchra, S. krylovii, Betula exilis, Ledum decumbens, Rosa acicularis, Saxifraga nelsoniana, S. cernua, Ranunculus grayi, Polygonum tripterocarpum, Veratrum oxysepalum , Polemonium boreale, Gentiana glauca, Anemone richardsonii, Rubus arcticus, Artemisia arctica, Whilhelmsia physodes, Hupperzia selago) along streams, nival niches and narrow erosional ravines (Oxyria digyna, Ranunculus pygmaeus, Carex podocarpa, C. tripartita, Diapensia obovata, Saxifraga oppositifolia, Artemisia arctica, Anemone richardsonii);

1% - xeromesophilic and mesophilic meadows on ground squirrels (Rosa acicularis, Hierochloe alpina, Festuca altaica, Arctagrostis latifolia, Calamagrostis lapponica, Artemisia arctica, Pulsatilla multifida, Drococephalum palmatum, Chamerion angustifolium, Veratrum oxysepalum, Valeriana sppitata, Delincarpholia chamissonis) in the lower part of slopes and plumes;

1% - combinations of dwarf birch and sedge-moss tundras (Betula exilis, Salix pulchra, S. fuscescens, Empetrum subholarcticum, Vaccinium uliginosum, V. vitis-idaea, Polygonum tripterocarpum, Valeriana capitata, Petasites frigidus, Carex lugens, C. stans, Eriophorum vaginatum, Poa arctica, Rubus chamaemorus, Saxifraga hirculus, Chamaedaphne calyculata, Senecio atripurpureus) on terraces above the floodplain of small streams and fragments of a lakeside terrace;

4% - combinations of sedge-cotton grass shrub polygonal bogs with bulgunyakhs (Carex stans, Eriophorum polystachyon, E. russeolum, E. medium, Salix fuscescens, S. myrtilloides, Saxifraga cernua, Comarum palustre, Andromeda polifolia, Ledum decumbens, Oxycoccus microcarpus, Vaccinium uliginosum, Rubus chamaemorus, Hierochloe pauciflora, Carex chordorrhiza, C. rariflora, C. rotundata, Smilacina trifolia, Drosera rotundifolia, Pinguicula villosa) on the floodplain terrace of the river. Rauchua and lakeside terraces;

2% - dwarf shrub blueberry tundra on convex areas and patchy and patchy forb-shrub tundra on old pebbles (Vaccinium uliginosum, Betula exilis, Salix pulchra, Pentaphylloides fruticosa, Empetrum subholarcticum, Pulsatilla multifida, Luzula sibirica, Antennaria villifera) (Festuca altaica acicularis, Arnica iljinii, Hedysarum hedysaroides, Festuca brachyphylla, Salix phlebophylla, Crepis chrysantha, Androsace ochotensis, Silene repens, Thymus oxyodonthus, Potentilla nivea, P. stipularis) of the extensive floodplain terraces of the river. Rauchua;

2% - floodplain complexes of sparse grass meadows on pebbles and reed grass meadows on silty sand drifts (Calamagrostis purpurea, Festuca rubra, F. cryophila, Chamerion latifolium, Artemisia borealis, A. tilesii, Tanacetum boreale, Potentilla stipularis, Rumex graminifolius, Stellaria fischeriana, Leymus interior, Galium verum, Allium schoenoprasum, Helictotrichon dahuricum, Alopecurus glaucus) and fragments of floodplain willows (Salix krylovii, S. hastata, S. lanata, S. pulchra, S. alaxensis, Pentaphyloides fruticosa, Galium boreale, Equisetum arvense) p. Rauchua in the place where it flows out of the lake.

Biodiversity: About 320 species have been recorded in the area (Yurtsev et al., 1973a; Galanin, 1977).

Protected species: Many rare boreal species are found in the area, for example, the foxtail equal to Alopecurus aequalis, the Siberian juniper Juniperus sibirica, the adnexal sedge Carex appendiculata and the nosed C. rostrata (Yurtsev et al., 1973). In eutrophic bogs, there is a boreal relic of the three-leaved smilacina Smilacina trifolia, on old pebbles of the Dahurian oatmeal Helictotrichon dahuricum, and in the gravel tundra on mountain tops, the grapevines Botrychium lunaria, B. boreale grow extremely rarely. Artemisia flava, a rare species found only in the east of Chukotka, was found here (Yurtsev et al., 1973a). Other rare species include Carex holostoma and C. irrigua sedges.