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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Turkmenistan
Index
Turkmenistan's average elevation is 100 to 220 meters above sea level,
with its highest point being Mount Ayrybaba (3,137 meters) in the Kugitang
Range of the Pamir-Alay chain in the far east, and its lowest point in the
Transcaspian Depression (100 kilometers below sea level). Nearly 80
percent of the republic lies within the Turon Depression, which slopes
from south to north and from east to west.
Turkmenistan's mountains include 600 kilometers of the northern reaches
of the Kopetdag Range, which it shares with Iran. The Kopetdag Range is a
region characterized by foothills, dry and sandy slopes, mountain
plateaus, and steep ravines; Mount Shahshah (2,912 meters), southwest of
Ashgabat, is the highest elevation of the range in Turkmenistan. The
Kopetdag is undergoing tectonic transformation, meaning that the region is
threatened by earthquakes such as the one that destroyed Ashgabat in 1948
and registered nine on the Richter Scale. The Krasnovodsk and Üstirt
plateaus are the prominent topographical features of northwestern
Turkmenistan.
A dominant feature of the republic's landscape is the Garagum Desert,
which occupies about 350,000 square kilometers (see Environmental Issues,
this ch.). Shifting winds create desert mountains that range from two to
twenty meters in height and may be several kilometers in length. Chains of
such structures are common, as are steep elevations and smooth,
concrete-like clay deposits formed by the rapid evaporation of flood
waters in the same area for a number of years. Large marshy salt flats,
formed by capillary action in the soil, exist in many depressions,
including the Kara Shor, which occupies 1,500 square kilometers in the
northwest. The Sundukly Desert west of the Amu Darya is the southernmost
extremity of the Qizilqum (Russian spelling Kyzyl Kum) Desert, most of
which lies in Uzbekistan to the northeast.
Data as of March 1996
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