On the western slopes of the Ural mountains. northern ural
The Ural Mountains are a ridge on the border of Europe and Asia, as well as a natural border within Russia, to the east of which are Siberia and the Far East, and to the west is the European part of the country.
BELT MOUNTAINS
In the old days, for travelers approaching the Urals from the east or west, these mountains really seemed like a belt that tightly intercepted the plain, dividing it into the Cis-Urals and the Trans-Urals.
The Ural Mountains are a mountain range on the border of Europe and Asia, stretching from north to south. In geography, it is customary to divide these mountains according to the nature of the relief, natural conditions and other features into Pai-Khoi, the Polar Urals, and the Subpolar.
Northern, Middle, Southern Urals and Mugod-zhary. It is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of the Ural Mountains and the Urals: in a broader sense, the territory of the Urals includes the regions adjacent to the mountain system - the Urals, Cis-Urals and Trans-Urals.
The relief of the Ural Mountains is the main watershed range and several side ranges separated by wide depressions. In the Far North - glaciers and snowfields, in the middle part - mountains with smoothed peaks.
The Ural Mountains are old, they are about 300 million years old, they are noticeably eroded. The highest peak - Mount Narodnaya - is about two kilometers high.
The watershed of large rivers runs along the mountain range: the Ural rivers belong mainly to the basin of the Caspian Sea (Kama with Chusovaya and Belaya, Ural). Pechora, Tobol and others belong to the system of one of the largest rivers in Siberia - the Ob. There are many lakes on the eastern slope of the Urals.
The landscapes of the Ural Mountains are predominantly forested, there is a noticeable difference in the nature of vegetation on different sides of the mountains: on the western slope - mainly dark coniferous, spruce-fir forests (in the Southern Urals - mixed and broad-leaved in places), on the eastern slope - light coniferous pine-larch forests. In the south - forest-steppe and steppe (mostly plowed).
The Ural Mountains have long been of interest to geographers, including from the point of view of their unique location. In the era of Ancient Rome, these mountains seemed to scientists so far away that they were seriously called Riphean, or Ripean: literally translated from Latin - “coastal”, and in an expanded sense - “mountains on the edge of the earth”. They received the name Hyperborean (from the Greek "extreme northern") on behalf of the mythical country of Hyperborea, it was used for a thousand years, until in 1459 the Fra Mauro world map appeared, on which the "edge of the world" was shifted beyond the Urals.
It is believed that the mountains were discovered by the Novgorodians in 1096, during one of the campaigns to Pechora and Ugra by a team of Novgorod ushkuiniki, who were engaged in fur trade, trade and collection of yasak. At that time, the mountains did not receive any name. At the beginning of the XV century. Russian settlements appear on the upper Kama - Anfalovsky town and Sol-Kamskaya.
The first known name of these mountains is contained in documents at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, where they are called Stone: this is how any large rock or cliff was called in Ancient Russia. On the "Big Drawing" - the first map of the Russian state, compiled in the second half of the 16th century. - Ural is designated as Big Stone. In the XVI-XVIII centuries. the name Belt appears, reflecting the geographical position of the mountains between two plains. There are such variants of names as Big Stone, Big Belt, Stone Belt, Big Belt Stone.
The name "Ural" was originally used only for the territory of the Southern Urals and was taken from the Bashkir language, which meant "height" or "elevation". By the middle of the XVIII century. the name "Ural Mountains" is already applied to the entire mountain system.
ALL MENDELEEV'S TABLE
Such a figurative expression is resorted to whenever it is required to give a short and colorful description of the natural wealth of the Ural Mountains.
The antiquity of the Ural Mountains created unique conditions for the development of minerals: as a result of prolonged destruction by erosion, the deposits literally came to the surface. The combination of energy sources and raw materials predetermined the development of the Urals as a mining region.
Iron, copper, chromium and nickel ores, potash salts, asbestos, coal, precious and semi-precious stones - Ural gems have been mined here since ancient times. Since the middle of the XX century. oil and gas fields are being developed.
Russia has long been developing the lands adjacent to the Ural Mountains, occupying the Komi-Permyak towns, annexing the Udmurt and Bashkir territories: in the middle of the 16th century. after the defeat of the Kazan Khanate, most of Bashkiria and the Kama part of Udmurtia voluntarily became part of Russia. A special role in securing Russia in the Urals was played by the Ural Cossacks, who received the highest permission to engage in free arable farming here. The merchants Stroganovs laid the foundation for the purposeful development of the wealth of the Ural Mountains, having received from Tsar Ivan IV a charter on the Ural lands "and what lies in them."
At the beginning of the XVIII century. large-scale factory construction began in the Urals, caused by the needs of both the country's economic development and the needs of the military departments. Under Peter I, copper-smelting and iron foundries were built here, and subsequently large industrial centers were formed around them: Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Perm, Nizhny Tagil, Zlatoust. Gradually, the Ural Mountains found themselves in the center of the largest mining region in Russia, along with Moscow and St. Petersburg.
In the era of the USSR, the Urals became one of the industrial centers of the country, the most famous enterprises are the Ural Heavy Machine Building Plant (Uralmash), the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ), the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant (Magnitogorsk). During the Great Patriotic War, industrial production was exported to the Urals from the territories of the USSR occupied by the Germans.
In recent decades, the industrial significance of the Ural Mountains has noticeably decreased: many deposits are almost exhausted, the level of environmental pollution is quite high.
The bulk of the local population lives on the territory of the Ural economic region and in the Republic of Bashkortostan. In the more northern regions, belonging to the Northwestern and Western Siberian economic regions, the population is extremely rare.
During the industrial development of the Ural Mountains, as well as the plowing of the surrounding lands, hunting and deforestation, the habitats of many animals were destroyed, and many species of animals and birds disappeared, among them - a wild horse, saiga, bustard, little bustard. Herds of deer, which used to graze throughout the Urals, now migrated deep into the tundra. However, the measures taken to protect and reproduce the fauna of the Urals managed to preserve the brown bear, wolf, wolverine, fox, sable, ermine, and lynx in the reserves. Where it has not yet been possible to restore populations of local species, acclimatization of imported individuals is being successfully carried out: for example, in the Ilmensky Reserve - sika deer, beaver, maral, raccoon dog, American mink.
SIGHTS OF THE URAL MOUNTAINS
Natural:
■ Pechoro-Ilychsky, Visimsky, Basegi, South Ural, Shulgan-Tash, Orenburg steppe, Bashkirsky reserves, Ilmensky mineralogical reserve.
■ Divya, Arakaevskaya, Sugomakskaya, Kungurskaya ice and Kapova caves.
■ Rocky outcrops of the Seven Brothers.
■ Chertovo Settlement and Stone Tents.
■ Bashkir National Park, Yugyd Va National Park (Komi Republic).
■ Hoffmann Glacier (Saber Ridge).
■ Azov Mountain.
■ Alikaev Stone.
■ Deer Brooks Nature Park.
■ Blue Mountains pass.
■ Revun rapids (Iset river).
■ Zhigalan waterfalls (River Zhigalan).
■ Aleksandrovskaya Sopka.
■ Taganay National Park.
■ Ustinovskiy Canyon.
■ Gumerovskoye gorge.
■ Red Key spring.
■ Sterlitamak shikhans.
■ Krasnaya Krucha.
■ The Sterlitamak shikhans in Bashkiria are ancient coral reefs that have formed on the bottom of the Perm Sea. This amazing place is located near the city of Sterlitamak and consists of several high cone-shaped hills. A unique geological monument, whose age is more than 230 million years.
■ The peoples of the Urals still use the names of the Urals in their languages: Mansi - Ner, Khanty - Kev, Komi - Iz, Nenets - Pe or Igarka Pe. In all languages it means the same thing - "stone". Among Russians who have long lived in the north of the Urals, a tradition has also been preserved to call these mountains Kamen.
■ The bowls of the St. Petersburg Hermitage were made from Ural malachite and jasper, as well as the interior decoration and the altar of the St. Petersburg Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.
■ Scientists have not yet found an explanation for the mysterious natural phenomenon: the Ural lakes Uvildy, Bolshoi Kisegach and Turgoyak have unusually clear water. In neighboring lakes, it is completely muddy.
■ The top of Mount Kachkanar is a collection of bizarrely shaped rocks, many of which have their own names. The most famous of them is Camel Rock.
■ In the past, the richest deposits of high-quality iron ore in the Magnitnaya, Vysoka and Blagodat mountains, known throughout the world and listed in all textbooks on geology, are now either hidden or turned into quarries hundreds of meters deep.
■ The ethnographic appearance of the Urals was created by three streams of settlers: Russian Old Believers who fled here in the 17th-18th centuries, peasants transferred to the Ural factories from the European part of Russia (mainly from the modern Tula and Ryazan regions) and Ukrainians, attracted as an additional labor force at the beginning 19th century
■ In 1996, the Yugyd Va National Park, together with the Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve, with which the park borders in the south, was included in the list of UNESCO World Natural Heritage Sites under the name “Virgin Komi Forests”.
■ Alikaev Stone - a 50-meter rock on the Ufa River. The second name of the rock is Maryin cliff. Here they filmed the TV movie "Shadows disappear at noon" - about life in the Ural outback. It was from the Alikaev stone, according to the plot of the film, that the Menshikov brothers threw off the chairman of the collective farm, Marya Krasnaya. Since then, the stone has a second name - Maryin cliff.
■ The Zhigalan waterfalls on the Zhigalan River, on the eastern slope of the Kvarkush ridge, form a 550 m long cascade. With a river length of about 8 km, the elevation difference from source to mouth is almost 630 m.
■ Sugomak cave is the only cave in the Ural Mountains, 123 m long, formed in marble rock. There are only a few such caves on the territory of Russia.
■ The Krasny Klyuch spring is the most powerful water source in Russia and the second largest in the world after the Fontaine de Vaucluse spring in France. The water consumption of the Red Key spring is 14.88 m3/sec. Landmark of Bashkiria in the status of a hydrological monument of nature of federal significance.
GENERAL INFORMATION
- Location: between the East European and West Siberian plains.
- Geographical division: Pai-Khoi ridge. Polar Urals (from Konstantinov Kamen to the headwaters of the Khulga River), Subpolar Urals (the section between the Khulga and Shchugor rivers), Northern Urals (Voy) (from the Shchugor River to Kosvinsky Kamen and Mount Oslyanka), Middle Urals (Shor) (from Mt. Oslyanka to the Ufa River) and the Southern Urals (the southern part of the mountains below the city of Orsk), Mugodzhary (Kazakhstan).
- Economic regions: Ural, Volga, North-Western, West Siberian.
- Administrative affiliation: Russian Federation (Perm, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Orenburg, Arkhangelsk and Tyumen regions, Udmurt Republic, Republic of Bashkortostan, Republic of Komi), Kazakhstan (Aktobe region).
- Large cities: Yekaterinburg - 1,428,262 people. (2015), Chelyabinsk - 1,182,221 people. (2015), Ufa - 1,096,702 people. (2014), Perm - 1,036,476 people. (2015), Izhevsk - 642,024 people. (2015), Orenburg-561 279 people (2015), Magnitogorsk - 417,057 people. (2015), Nizhny Tagil - 356,744 people. (2015), Kurgan - 326,405 people. (2015).
- Languages: Russian, Bashkir, Udmurt, Komi-Permyak, Kazakh.
- Ethnic composition: Russians, Bashkirs, Udmurts, Komi, Kazakhs.
- Religions: Orthodoxy, Islam, traditional beliefs. Monetary unit: ruble, tenge.
- Rivers: the Caspian Sea basin (Kama with Chusovaya and Belaya, Ural), the Arctic Ocean basin (Pechora with Usa; Tobol, Iset, Tura belong to the Ob system).
- Lakes: Tavatui, Argazi, Uvildy, Turgoyak, Big Pike.
CLIMATE
- Continental.
- Average January temperature: from -20°C (Polar Urals) to -15°C (Southern Urals).
- Average temperature in July: from + 9°С (Polar Urals) to +20°С (Southern Urals).
- Average annual precipitation: Subpolar and Northern Urals - 1000 mm, Southern Urals - 650-750 mm. Relative humidity: 60-70%.
ECONOMY
- Minerals: iron, copper, chromium, nickel, potassium salts, asbestos, coal, oil.
- Industry: mining, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, heavy engineering, chemical and petrochemical, fertilizers, electrical engineering.
- Hydroelectric power industry: Pavlovskaya, Yuma-guzinskaya, Shirokovskaya, Iriklinskaya HPPs. Forestry.
- Agriculture: crop production (wheat, rye, garden crops), animal husbandry (cattle, pig breeding).
- Traditional crafts: artistic processing of Ural gems, knitting of Orenburg downy shawls.
- Service sector: tourism, transport, trade.
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
Test in grade 8 on the topic "Ural"
1. What was the name of the Ural Mountains among ancient authors?
A. Stone; B. Earth belt;
V. Riphean; G. Ice.
2. What is the highest peak of the Urals:
A. Narodnaya; B. Pay-Er;
V. Yamantau; G. Magnetic.
3. The length of the Urals from north to south:
A. 5000km; B. more than 2000 km;
W. 500km; G. more than 5000 km.
4.More precipitation falls:
A. on the western slopes; B. on the eastern slopes;
5.Ural is located between:
A. Russian Plain and North Caucasus; B. Russian Plain and West Siberian Plain;
V. Russian Plain and Central Siberian Plateau;
6. Most of the deposits are located on the eastern slope:
A. Oil and natural gas; B. metal ores;
B. table and potassium salts;
7. The oldest gold mining site in the Urals:
A. Kochkanarskoye; B. Berezovskoe;
8. What mineral is called "mountain flax"?
A. Mica; B. Asbest;
B. Marble; G. Graphite.
9. The slopes are covered with dark coniferous spruce-fir forests:
A. Polar Urals; B. Middle Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
A. Ufa; B. Chusovaya;
V. Tobol; G. Kama.
11. What are the largest cities in the Urals in terms of population:
A. Orenburg, Zlatoust, Magnitogorsk; B. Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Ufa;
V. Nizhny Tagil, Pervouralsk, Troitsk, Berezniki, Kungur.
12. In the polar part of the Urals live:
A. Chipmunk and brown bear; B. Squirrel and lynx;
B. Arctic fox and snowy owl; G. saiga and viper.
13. Phenomenal natural formations - obelisks and pillars are found on the territory:
A. Northern Urals; B. Polar Urals;
V. Southern Urals;
14. The left tributary of the Kama River is:
A. Belaya; B. Shchuchya;
V. Pechora; G. Chusovaya.
15. The name "Ural" first appears in the works of a Russian scientist:
A.D.I. Mendeleev; B.A.P. Karpinsky;
V.V.N. Tatishchev;
16. What is the name of a stony placer and a heap of stones on the slopes and flat tops of mountains:
A. Snezhnik; B. Kurum;
V. Gorst.
17. When were the first saltworks established in the village of Sol-Kamskoye by the Kalinnikov merchants?
A. in the 14th century; B. in the 16th century;
V. in the 15th century.
18. Along which meridian do the Ural mountains stretch?
A. 60 0 east; B. 60 0 w.d.;
B. 50 0 east; G.65 0 E
19. Name the river in which the wounded V.I. drowned. Chapaev:
A. Belaya; B. Kama;
V. Pechora; G.Ural.
20. On the right bank of which river is the famous Kungur ice cave located?
A. Ufa; B. Kama;
V. Sylva; G. Vishera.
Answers: 1.A 2.A 3.B 4.5.A 6.B 7.B 8.B 9.B 10.G 11.B12.B 13.A 14.A,G 15.B 16.B 17.V 18.A 19.D 20.V
The Russian Plain is bounded in the east by a well-defined natural boundary - the Ural Mountains. These mountains have long been considered to be beyond the border of two parts of the world - Europe and Asia. Despite its low height, the Urals are quite well isolated as a mountainous country, which is greatly facilitated by the presence of low plains to the west and east of it - Russian and West Siberian.
"Ural" is a word of Turkic origin, which means "belt" in translation. Indeed, the Ural Mountains resemble a narrow belt or ribbon stretching across the plains of Northern Eurasia from the shores of the Kara Sea to the steppes of Kazakhstan. The total length of this belt from north to south is about 2000 km (from 68 ° 30 "to 51 ° N), and the width is 40-60 km and only in places more than 100 km. In the northwest through the Pai-Khoi ridge and the Vaigach Ural Island passes into the mountains of Novaya Zemlya, therefore, some researchers consider it as part of the Ural-Novaya Zemlya natural country.In the south, the continuation of the Urals are Mugodzhary.
Many Russian and Soviet researchers took part in the study of the Urals. The first of them were P. I. Rychkov and I. I. Lepekhin (second half of the 18th century). In the middle of the XIX century. E. K. Hoffman worked in the Northern and Middle Urals for many years. A great contribution to the knowledge of the landscapes of the Urals was made by Soviet scientists V. A. Varsanofyeva (geologist and geomorphologist) and I. M. Krasheninnikov (geobotanist).
The Urals is the oldest mining region in our country. In its depths there are huge reserves of a wide variety of minerals. Iron, copper, nickel, chromites, aluminum raw materials, platinum, gold, potassium salts, precious stones, asbestos - it is difficult to list everything that the Ural Mountains are rich in. The reason for such wealth is in the peculiar geological history of the Urals, which also determines the relief and many other elements of the landscape of this mountainous country.
Geological structure
The Ural is one of the ancient folded mountains. In its place in the Paleozoic, a geosyncline was located; the seas rarely then left its territory. They changed their boundaries and depth, leaving behind powerful layers of sediments. The Urals experienced several mountain building processes. The Caledonian folding, which manifested itself in the Lower Paleozoic (including the Salair folding in the Cambrian), although it covered a significant territory, was not the main one for the Ural Mountains. The main folding was Hercynian. It began in the Middle Carboniferous in the east of the Urals, and in the Permian it spread to the western slopes.
The most intense was the Hercynian folding in the east of the ridge. It manifested itself here in the formation of strongly compressed, often overturned and recumbent folds, complicated by large thrusts, leading to the appearance of scaly structures. Folding in the east of the Urals was accompanied by deep splits and intrusions of powerful granite intrusions. Some of the intrusions in the Southern and Northern Urals reach enormous sizes - up to 100-120 km long and 50-60 km wide.
Folding was much less vigorous on the western slope. Therefore, simple folds prevail there; overthrusts are rarely observed, there are no intrusions.
Geological structure of the Urals. I - Cenozoic group: 1 - Quaternary system; 2 - Paleogene; II. Mesozoic group: 3 - Cretaceous system; 4 - Triassic system; III. Paleozoic group: 5 - Permian system; 6 - coal system; 7 - Devonian system; 8 - Silurian system; 9 - Ordovician system; 10 - Cambrian system; IV. Precambrian: 11 - Upper Proterozoic (Riphean); 12 - lower and undivided by Proterozoic; 13 - archaea; V. Intrusions of all ages: 14 - granitoids; 15 - medium and basic; 16 - ultrabasic.
Tectonic pressure, which resulted in folding, was directed from east to west. The rigid foundation of the Russian platform prevented the spread of folding in this direction. The folds are most compressed in the area of the Ufimsky plateau, where they are very complex even on the western slope.
After the Hercynian orogeny, folded mountains arose on the site of the Ural geosyncline, and the later tectonic movements here were in the nature of block uplifts and subsidence, which were accompanied in places, in a limited area, by intense folding and faults. In the Triassic-Jurassic, most of the territory of the Urals remained dry land, erosional processing of the mountainous relief took place, and coal-bearing strata accumulated on its surface, mainly along the eastern slope of the ridge. In the Neogene-Quaternary time, differentiated tectonic movements were observed in the Urals.
In tectonic terms, the entire Urals is a large meganticlinorium, consisting of a complex system of anticlinoria and synclinoria separated by deep faults. In the cores of anticlinoria, the most ancient rocks emerge - crystalline schists, quartzites and granites of the Proterozoic and Cambrian. In synclinoria, thick strata of Paleozoic sedimentary and volcanic rocks are observed. From west to east in the Urals, a change in structural-tectonic zones is clearly traced, and with them a change in rocks that differ from one another in lithology, age and origin. These structural-tectonic zones are as follows: 1) zone of marginal and periclinal troughs; 2) zone of marginal anticlinoria; 3) zone of shale synclinories; 4) zone of the Central Ural anticliporium; 5) zone of Greenstone synclinorpy; 6) zone of the East Ural anticlinorium; 7) zone of the East Ural synclinorium1. The last two zones north of 59° N. sh. submerge, overlapping with Meso-Cenozoic deposits common in the West Siberian Plain.
The meridional zonality in the Urals is also subject to the distribution of minerals. Deposits of oil, coal (Vorkuta), potash salt (Solikamsk), rock salt, gypsum, bauxite (eastern slope) are associated with the Paleozoic sedimentary deposits of the western slope. Platinum deposits and pyrite ores gravitate towards intrusions of basic and ultrabasic rocks. The most famous locations of iron ores - mountains Magnitnaya, Blagodat, High - are associated with intrusions of granites and syenites. In granite intrusions, deposits of native gold and precious stones are concentrated, among which the Ural emerald has received world fame.
Orography and geomorphology
The Ural is a whole system of mountain ranges, stretched parallel to one another in the meridional direction. As a rule, there are two or three such parallel ranges, but in some places, with the expansion of the mountain system, their number increases to four or more. So, for example, the Southern Urals is orographically very complex between 55 and 54 ° N. sh., where there are at least six ridges. Between the ridges lie vast depressions occupied by river valleys.
The orography of the Urals is closely related to its tectonic structure. Most often, ridges and ridges are confined to anticlinal zones, and depressions are confined to synclinal ones. Inverted relief is less common, associated with the presence of rocks more resistant to destruction in synclinal zones than in adjacent anticlinal zones. Such a character has, for example, the Zilair plateau, or the South Ural plateau, within the Zilair synclinorium.
Lower areas are replaced in the Urals by elevated ones - a kind of mountain nodes, in which the mountains reach not only their maximum heights, but also their greatest width. It is remarkable that such knots coincide with the places where the strike of the Ural mountain system changes. The main ones are Subpolar, Middle Ural and South Ural. In the Subpolar node, which lies at 65 ° N, the Urals deviate from the southwestern direction to the south. Here rises the highest peak of the Ural Mountains - Mount Narodnaya (1894 m). The Middle Urals junction is located at about 60°N. sh., where the strike of the Urals changes from south to south-southeast. Among the peaks of this knot, Mount Konzhakovsky Kamen (1569 m) stands out. The South Ural node is located between 55 and 54 ° N. sh. Here, the direction of the Ural ridges becomes south-western instead of south-western, and Iremel (1582 m) and Yamantau (1640 m) attract attention from the peaks.
A common feature of the relief of the Urals is the asymmetry of its western and eastern slopes. The western slope is gentle, passes into the Russian Plain more gradually than the eastern one, which steeply descends towards the West Siberian Plain. The asymmetry of the Urals is due to tectonics, the history of its geological development.
Another orographic feature of the Urals is associated with asymmetry - the displacement of the main watershed ridge separating the rivers of the Russian Plain from the rivers of Western Siberia to the east, closer to the West Siberian Plain. This ridge in different parts of the Urals has different names: Uraltau in the Southern Urals, Belt Stone in the Northern Urals. At the same time, it is not the highest almost everywhere; the largest peaks, as a rule, lie to the west of it. Such a hydrographic asymmetry of the Urals is the result of increased "aggressiveness" of the rivers of the western slope, caused by a sharper and faster uplift of the Cis-Urals in the Neogene compared to the Trans-Urals.
Even with a cursory glance at the hydrographic pattern of the Urals, the presence of sharp, elbow turns in most rivers on the western slope is striking. In the upper reaches of the river flow in the meridional direction, following the longitudinal intermountain depressions. Then they turn sharply to the west, sawing often high ridges, after which they again flow in the meridional direction or retain the old latitudinal direction. Such sharp turns are well expressed in Pechora, Shchugor, Ilych, Belaya, Aya, Sakmara and many others. It has been established that the rivers saw through the ridges in places where the axes of the folds are lowered. In addition, many of them, apparently, are older than mountain ranges, and their incision proceeded simultaneously with the uplift of the mountains.
A small absolute height determines the predominance of low-mountain and mid-mountain geomorphological landscapes in the Urals. The peaks of many ranges are flat, while some mountains are domed with more or less soft outlines of the slopes. In the Northern and Polar Urals, near the upper border of the forest and above it, where frosty weathering is vigorously manifested, stone seas (kurums) are widespread. These places are also characterized by upland terraces resulting from solifluction processes and frost weathering.
Alpine landforms are extremely rare in the Ural Mountains. They are known only in the most elevated parts of the Polar and Subpolar Urals. The bulk of modern glaciers of the Urals are connected with the same mountain ranges.
"Lednichki" is not an accidental expression in relation to the glaciers of the Urals. Compared to the glaciers of the Alps and the Caucasus, the Urals look like dwarfs. All of them belong to the cirque and cirque-valley type and are located below the climatic snow boundary. The total number of glaciers in the Urals is 122, and the entire area of glaciation is only slightly more than 25 km2. Most of them are in the polar watershed part of the Urals between 67-68 ° N. sh. Caro-valley glaciers up to 1.5-2.2 km long have been found here. The second glacial region is located in the Subpolar Urals between 64 and 65°N. sh.
The main part of the glaciers is concentrated on the more humid western slope of the Urals. It is noteworthy that all Ural glaciers lie in cirques of eastern, southeastern, and northeastern exposures. This is explained by the fact that they are inspired, that is, they were formed as a result of the deposition of snowstorm snow in the wind shadow of mountain slopes.
The ancient Quaternary glaciation did not differ in great intensity in the Urals either. Reliable traces of it can be traced to the south no further than 61 ° N. sh. Such glacial landforms as kars, cirques and hanging valleys are quite well expressed here. At the same time, the absence of ram foreheads and well-preserved glacier-accumulative forms, such as drumlins, eskers, and terminal moraine ridges, draws attention. The latter suggests that the ice sheet in the Urals was thin and not active everywhere; significant areas, apparently, were occupied by slow-moving firn and ice.
A remarkable feature of the Ural relief is the ancient leveling surfaces. They were first studied in detail by V. A. Varsanofyeva in 1932 in the Northern Urals and later by others in the Middle and Southern Urals. Various researchers in different places of the Urals count from one to seven leveled surfaces. These ancient leveling surfaces serve as convincing proof of the uneven uplift of the Urals in time. The highest of them corresponds to the most ancient cycle of peneplanation, falling on the lower Mesozoic, the youngest, lower surface is of Tertiary age.
IP Gerasimov denies the existence of leveling surfaces of different ages in the Urals. In his opinion, there is only one leveling surface here, formed during the Jurassic-Paleogene and then subjected to deformation as a result of the latest tectonic movements and erosional erosion.
It is difficult to agree that for such a long time as the Jurassic-Paleogene, there was only one undisturbed denudation cycle. But I. P. Gerasimov is undoubtedly right, emphasizing the great role of neotectonic movements in the formation of the modern relief of the Urals. After the Cimmerian folding, which did not affect the deep Paleozoic structures, the Urals during the Cretaceous and Paleogene existed in the form of a strongly peneplanated country, on the outskirts of which there were also shallow seas. The modern mountain appearance of the Urals acquired only as a result of tectonic movements that took place in the Neogene and Quaternary period. Where they reached a large scale, now the highest mountains rise, and where tectonic activity was weak, ancient peneplains lie little changed.
Karst landforms are widespread in the Urals. They are characteristic of the western slope and Cis-Urals, where Paleozoic limestones, gypsums and salts karst. The intensity of karst manifestation here can be judged by the following example: for the Perm region, 15 thousand karst sinkholes have been described in detail surveyed 1000 km2. The largest in the Urals is the Sumgan Cave (Southern Urals), 8 km long, the Kungur Ice Cave with numerous grottoes and underground lakes is very famous. Other large caves are Divya in the area of Polyudova Ridge and Kapova on the right bank of the Belaya River.
Climate
The huge length of the Urals from north to south is manifested in the zonal change of its climate types from tundra in the north to steppe in the south. The contrasts between north and south are most pronounced in summer. The average air temperature in July in the north of the Urals is 6-8°, and in the south about 22°. In winter, these differences smooth out, and the average January temperature is equally low both in the north (-20°) and in the south (-15, -16°).
The small height of the mountain belt with its insignificant width cannot cause the formation of its own special climate in the Urals. Here, in a slightly modified form, the climate of the neighboring plains is repeated. But the types of climate in the Urals seem to be shifting to the south. For example, the mountain-tundra climate continues to dominate here at a latitude where the taiga climate is already common in adjacent lowland areas; the mountain-taiga climate is distributed at the latitude of the forest-steppe climate of the plains, etc.
The Urals are stretched across the direction of the prevailing westerly winds. In this regard, its western slope meets cyclones more often and is better moistened than the eastern one; on average, it receives precipitation 100-150 mm more than the eastern one. So, the annual amount of precipitation in Ki-zel (260 m above sea level) is 688 mm, Ufa (173 m) is 585 mm; on the eastern slope in Sverdlovsk (281 m) it is 438 mm, in Chelyabinsk (228 m) - 361 mm. Very clearly the differences in the amount of precipitation between the western and eastern slopes can be traced in winter. If on the western slope the Ural taiga is buried in snowdrifts, then on the eastern slope there is little snow all winter. Thus, the average maximum thickness of the snow cover along the line Ust-Shchugor - Saranpaul (to the north of 64 ° N) is as follows: in the Ural part of the Pechora Lowland - about 90 cm, at the western foot of the Urals - 120-130 cm, in the watershed part of the western slope Ural - more than 150 cm, on the eastern slope - about 60 cm.
Most precipitation - up to 1000, and according to some sources - up to 1400 mm per year - falls on the western slope of the Subpolar, Polar and northern parts of the Southern Urals. In the extreme north and south of the Ural Mountains, their number decreases, which is associated, as in the Russian Plain, with the weakening of cyclonic activity.
The rugged mountainous relief causes an exceptional variety of local climates. Mountains of unequal height, slopes of different exposure, intermountain valleys and basins - all of them have their own special climate. In winter and during the transitional seasons of the year, cold air rolls down the slopes of the mountains into depressions, where it stagnates, resulting in the phenomenon of temperature inversion, which is very common in the mountains. In the Ivanovsky mine (856 m abs. alt.), in winter the temperature is higher or the same as in Zlatoust, located 400 m below the Ivanovsky mine.
Climatic features in a number of cases determine a pronounced inversion of vegetation. In the Middle Urals, broad-leaved species (holly maple, elm, linden) are found mainly in the middle part of the mountain slopes and avoid the frost-prone lower parts of the mountain slopes and hollows.
Rivers and lakes
The Urals has a developed river network belonging to the basins of the Caspian, Kara and Barents Seas.
The magnitude of the river runoff in the Urals is much greater than in the adjacent Russian and West Siberian plains. Opa increases when moving from the southeast to the northwest of the Urals and from the foothills to the tops of the mountains. The river runoff reaches its maximum in the most humid, western part of the Polar and Subpolar Urals. Here, the average annual runoff module in some places exceeds 40 l / s per 1 km 2 of the area. A significant part of the Mountain Urals, located between 60 and 68 ° N. sh., has a drain module of more than 25 l / s. The runoff module sharply decreases in the southeastern Trans-Urals, where it is only 1-3 l/sec.
In accordance with the distribution of runoff, the river network on the western slope of the Urals is better developed and more abundant than on the eastern slope. The rivers of the Pechora basin and the northern tributaries of the Kama are the most water-bearing, the Ural River is the least water-bearing. According to the calculations of A. O. Kemmerich, the volume of the average annual runoff from the territory of the Urals is 153.8 km 3 (9.3 l / s from 1 km 2 of area), of which 95.5 km 3 (62%) falls on the Pechora basin and Kama.
An important feature of most of the rivers of the Urals is the relatively low variability of the annual runoff. The ratio of the annual water discharges of the most abundant year to the water discharges of the least water year usually ranges from 1.5 to 3. The exception is the forest-steppe and steppe rivers of the Southern Urals, where this ratio increases significantly.
Many rivers of the Urals suffer from industrial waste pollution, so the issues of protection and purification of river waters are especially relevant here.
There are relatively few lakes in the Urals and their areas are small. The largest lake Argazi (basin of the river Miass) has an area of 101 km2. According to the genesis, the lakes are grouped into tectonic, glacial, karst, suffusion ones. Glacial lakes are confined to the mountain belt of the Subpolar and Polar Urals, lakes of suffusion-subsidence origin are common in the forest-steppe and steppe Trans-Urals. Some tectonic lakes, subsequently developed by glaciers, have significant depths (such is the deepest lake in the Urals, Big Shchuchye - 136 m).
Several thousand reservoir ponds are known in the Urals, including 200 industrial ponds.
Soils and vegetation
The soils and vegetation of the Urals show a special, mountain-latitudinal zonality (from the tundra in the north to the steppes in the south), which differs from the zonality on the plains in that the soil-vegetation zones are shifted far to the south. In the foothills, the barrier role of the Urals is noticeably affected. Thus, as a result of the barrier factor in the Southern Urals (foothills, lower parts of the mountain slopes), instead of the usual steppe and southern forest-steppe landscapes, forest and northern forest-steppe landscapes were formed (F. A. Maksyutov).
The extreme north of the Urals from the foot to the peaks is covered with mountain tundra. However, very soon (to the north of 67°N) they pass into a high-altitude landscape belt, being replaced at the foothills by mountain taiga forests.
Forests are the most common type of vegetation in the Urals. They stretch like a solid green wall along the ridge from the Arctic Circle to 52 ° N. sh., interrupted at high peaks by mountain tundra, and in the south - at the foot - by steppes.
These forests are diverse in composition: coniferous, broad-leaved and small-leaved. The Ural coniferous forests have a completely Siberian appearance: in addition to Siberian spruce (Picea obovata) and pine (Pinus silvestris), they also contain Siberian fir (Abies sibirica), Sukachev's larch (Larix sucaczewii) and Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica). The Urals does not present a serious obstacle for the distribution of Siberian conifers; they all cross the ridge, and the western border of their range runs along the Russian Plain.
Coniferous forests are most common in the northern part of the Urals, north of 58 ° N. sh. True, they are also found further south, but their role here is sharply reduced, as the areas of small-leaved and broad-leaved forests increase. The least demanding coniferous species in terms of climate and soils is Sukachev's larch. It goes farther than other rocks to the north, reaching 68 ° N. sh., and together with the pine further than others, it spreads to the south, only a little short of the latitudinal segment of the Ural River.
Despite the fact that the range of larch is so extensive, it does not occupy large areas and almost does not form pure stands. The main role in the coniferous forests of the Urals belongs to spruce and fir plantations. A third of the forest region of the Urals is occupied by pine, plantations of which, with an admixture of Sukachev's larch, gravitate towards the eastern slope of the mountainous country.
1 - arctic tundra; 2 - tundra gley; 3 - gley-podzolic (surface-gleyed) and illuvial-humus podzolic; 4 - podzolic and podzols; 5 - sod-podzolic; 6 - podzolic-marsh; 7 - peat-bog (upland bogs); 8 - humus-peat-marsh (lowland and transitional bogs); 9 - sod-carbonate; 10 - gray forest and - leached and podzolized chernozems; 12 - typical chernozems (fat medium thick); 13 - ordinary chernozems; 14 - ordinary chernozems solonetzic; 15 - southern chernozems; 16 - southern solonetsous chernozems, 17 - meadow chernozems (mostly solonetsous); 18 - dark chestnut; 19 - solonetzes 20 - alluvial (floodplain), 21 - mountain tundra; 22 - mountain meadow; 23 - mountain-taiga podzolic and acid non-podzolized; 24 - mountain-forest, gray; 25 - mountain chernozems.
Broad-leaved forests play a significant role only on the western slope of the Southern Urals. They occupy approximately 4-5% of the area of the forest Urals - oak, linden, maple, elm (Ulmus scabra). All of them, with the exception of linden, do not go further east than the Urals. But the coincidence of the eastern border of their distribution with the Urals is an accidental phenomenon. The advance of these rocks into Siberia is hindered not by the severely destroyed Ural Mountains, but by the Siberian continental climate.
Small-leaved forests are scattered throughout the Urals, mostly in its southern part. Their origin is twofold - primary and secondary. Birch is one of the most common species in the Urals.
Mountain podzolic soils of varying degrees of swampiness are developed under the forests. In the south of the region of coniferous forests, where they acquire a southern taiga appearance, typical mountain podzolic soils give way to mountain soddy podzolic soils.
The main zonal divisions of the vegetation cover on the plains adjacent to the Urals and their mountain counterparts (according to P. L. Gorchakovsky). Zones: I - tundra; II - forest-tundra; III - taiga with subzones: a - preforest-tundra sparse forests; b - northern taiga; c - middle taiga; d - southern taiga; e - preforest-steppe pine and birch forests; IV - broad-leaved forest with subzones: a - mixed broad-leaved-coniferous forests; b - deciduous forests; V - forest-steppe; VI - steppe. Borders: 1 - zones; 2 - subzones; 3 - Ural mountain country.
Further south, under the mixed, broad-leaved and small-leaved forests of the Southern Urals, gray forest soils are common.
The farther south, the higher and higher the forest belt of the Urals rises into the mountains. Its upper limit in the south of the Polar Urals lies at an altitude of 200 - 300 m, in the Northern Urals - at an altitude of 450 - 600 m, in the Middle Urals it rises to 600 - 800 m, and in the Southern Urals - up to 1100 - 1200 m.
Between the mountain-forest belt and treeless mountain tundra stretches a narrow transitional belt, which P. L. Gorchakovsky calls the subbalt. In this belt, thickets of shrubs and twisted low-growing forests alternate with clearings of wet meadows on dark mountain meadow soils. The winding birch (Betula tortuosa), cedar, fir and spruce entering here form a dwarf form in places.
Altitudinal zonality of vegetation in the Ural mountains (according to P. L. Gorchakovsky).
A - the southern part of the Polar Urals; B - northern and central parts of the Southern Urals. 1 - belt of cold bald deserts; 2 - mountain-tundra belt; 3 - subalpine belt: a - birch thickets in combination with park fir-spruce forests and meadow glades; b - subalpine larch woodlands; c - subalpine park fir-spruce forests in combination with meadow glades; d - subalpine oak forests in combination with meadow glades; 4 - mountain-forest belt: a - mountain larch forests of preforest-tundra type; b - mountain spruce forests of preforest-tundra type; c - mountain fir-spruce southern taiga forests; d - mountain pine and birch steppe forests derived from them; e - mountain broad-leaved (oak, purple, maple) forests; 5 - belt of mountain forest-steppe.
South of 57° N. sh. first, on the foothill plains, and then on the slopes of the mountains, the forest belt is replaced by forest-steppe and steppe on chernozem soils. The extreme south of the Urals, like its extreme north, is treeless. Mountain chernozem steppes, interrupted in places by mountain forest-steppe, cover the entire range here, including its peneplanated axial part. In addition to mountain-podzolic soils in the axial part of the Northern and partly the Middle Urals, peculiar mountain-forest acidic non-podzolized soils are widespread. They are characterized by an acid reaction, unsaturation with bases, a relatively high content of humus and its gradual decrease with depth.
Animal world
The fauna of the Urals is composed of three main complexes: tundra, forest and steppe. Following vegetation, northern animals in their distribution along the Ural mountain belt move far to the south. Suffice it to say that until recently the reindeer lived in the Southern Urals, and the brown bear still sometimes comes to the Orenburg region from the mountainous Bashkiria.
Typical tundra animals inhabiting the Polar Urals include reindeer, arctic fox, hoofed lemming (Dycrostonyx torquatus), Middendorf's vole (Microtus middendorfi), partridges (white - Lagopus lagopus, tundra - L. mutus); in summer there are a lot of waterfowl (ducks, geese).
The forest complex of animals is best preserved in the Northern Urals, where it is represented by taiga species: brown bear, sable, wolverine, otter (Lutra lutra), lynx, squirrel, chipmunk, red-backed vole (Clethrionomys rutilus); from birds - hazel grouse and capercaillie.
The distribution of steppe animals is limited to the Southern Urals. As on the plains, there are many rodents in the steppes of the Urals: ground squirrels (small - Citelluspigmaeus and reddish - C. major), large jerboa (Allactaga jaculus), marmot, steppe pika (Ochotona pusilla), common hamster (Cricetuscricetus), common vole (Microtus arvalis) and others. Of the predators, the wolf, corsac fox, and steppe polecat are common. Birds are diverse in the steppe: steppe eagle (Aquila nipa-lensis), steppe harrier (Circus macrourus), kite (Milvus korschun), bustard, little bustard, saker falcon (Falco cherruy), gray partridge (Рrdix perdix), demoiselle crane ( Anthropoides virgo), horned lark (Otocorus alpestris), black lark (Melanocorypha yeltoniensis).
Of the 76 species of mammals known in the Urals, 35 species are commercial.
From the history of the development of landscapes in the Urals
In the Paleogene, on the site of the Ural Mountains, a low hilly plain rose, resembling the modern Kazakh hills. From the east and south it was surrounded by shallow seas. The climate was then hot, evergreen tropical forests and dry woodlands with palms and laurels grew in the Urals.
By the end of the Paleogene, the evergreen Poltava flora was supplanted by the Turgai deciduous flora of temperate latitudes. Already at the very beginning of the Neogene, forests of oak, beech, hornbeam, chestnut, alder, and birch dominated in the Urals. Great changes during this period take place in the relief: as a result of vertical uplifts, the Urals from a small hillock turns into a middle-mountainous country. Along with this, altitudinal differentiation of vegetation occurs: the tops of the mountains are captured by the mountain taiga, the vegetation of the loaches is gradually formed, which is facilitated by the restoration in the Neogene of the continental connection of the Urals with Siberia, the birthplace of the mountain tundra.
At the very end of the Neogene, the Akchagyl Sea approached the southwestern slopes of the Urals. The climate at that time was cold, the ice age was approaching; coniferous taiga became the dominant type of vegetation.
In the era of the Dnieper glaciation, the northern half of the Urals hid under the ice cover, and the south at that time was occupied by cold birch-pine-larch forest-steppe, sometimes spruce forests, and near the valley of the Ural River and along the slopes of the General Syrt, the remains of broad-leaved forests remained.
After the death of the glacier, the forests moved to the north of the Urals, and the role of dark coniferous species increased in their composition. In the south, broad-leaved forests became more common, while the birch-pine-larch forest-steppe gradually degraded. Birch and larch groves found in the Southern Urals are direct descendants of those birch and larch forests that were characteristic of the cold Pleistocene forest-steppe.
In the mountains it is impossible to distinguish landscape zones similar to the plains, so mountainous countries are divided not into zones, but into mountainous landscape areas. Their selection is made on the basis of geological, geomorphological and bioclimatic features, as well as the structure of altitudinal zonality.
Landscape areas of the Urals
Tundra and forest-tundra region of the Polar Urals
The tundra and forest-tundra region of the Polar Urals extends from the northern outskirts of the Ural belt to 64° 30" N. Together with the Pai-Khoi ridge, the Polar Urals forms an arc with its convex side facing east. The axial part of the Polar Urals runs at 66° E. - 7° east of the Northern and Middle Urals.
The Pai-Khoi ridge, which is a small hillock (up to 467 m), is separated from the Polar Urals by a strip of lowland tundra. Actually, the Polar Urals begins with a low mountain Konstantinov Kamen (492 m) on the shore of the Baydaratskaya Bay. To the south, the height of the mountains increases sharply (up to 1200-1350m), and Mount Pai-Er north of the Arctic Circle has a height of 1499 m. The maximum heights are concentrated in the southern part of the region at about 65 ° N. sh., where Mount Narodnaya rises (1894 m). Here, the Polar Urals expands greatly - up to 125 km, while breaking up into at least five or six parallel elongated ridges, the most significant of which are Research in the west and Narodo-Itinsky in the east. In the south of the Polar Urals, the Sablya mountain range (1425 m) advanced far to the west towards the Pechora Lowland.
In the formation of the relief of the Polar Urals, the role of frosty weathering is exceptionally great, accompanied by the formation of stone placers - kurums and structural (polygonal) soils. Permafrost and frequent fluctuations in the temperature of the upper soil layers in summer contribute to the development of solifluction processes.
The predominant type of relief here is a flattened plateau-like surface with traces of ice cover, dissected along the margins by deep trough-like valleys. Peaked alpine forms are found only on the highest mountain peaks. The alpine relief is better represented only in the very south of the Polar Urals, in the region of 65 ° N. sh. Here, in the area of the Narodnaya and Sablya mountains, modern glaciers are found, the peaks of the mountains end in sharp, jagged ridges, and their slopes are corroded by steep-walled cirques and cirques.
The climate of the Polar Urals is cold and humid. Summer is cloudy, rainy, the average July temperature at the foot is 8-14°. Winter is long and cold (average January temperature is below -20°C), with blizzards sweeping huge snowdrifts in depressions. Permafrost is a common occurrence here. The annual amount of precipitation increases in a southerly direction from 500 to 800 mm.
The soil and vegetation cover of the Polar Urals is monotonous. In its northern part, the plain tundra merges with the mountainous one. In the foothills, moss, lichen and shrub tundra spread, in the central part of the mountainous region - stony placers, almost devoid of vegetation. Forests are found in the south, but their role in the landscape is insignificant. The first low-growing larch sparse forests are found along the river valleys of the eastern slope at about 68°N. sh. The fact that they appear for the first time on the eastern slope is not accidental: there is less snow here, the climate is generally continental, and therefore more favorable for the forest compared to the western slope. Near the Arctic Circle, spruce forests join the larch forests, at 66 ° N. sh. cedar begins to come across, south of 65 ° N. sh. - pine and fir. On Mount Saber, spruce-fir forests rise to 400-450 m above sea level, higher they are replaced by larch woodlands and meadows, which at an altitude of 500-550 m turn into mountain tundra.
It has been noted that near the Arctic Circle, spruce and larch forests grow better on the ridge itself than in the foothills and on the plains covered with forest-tundra woodlands. The reason for this is the better drainage of the mountains and temperature inversion.
The Polar Urals is still poorly developed economically. But even this remote mountainous region is being gradually transformed by the Soviet people. It is crossed from west to east by a railway line connecting Ust-Vorkuta with Salekhard.
Taiga region of the Northern Urals
This region of the Urals extends from 64° 30" N to 59° 30" N. sh. It starts immediately to the south of the Saber mountain range and ends with the Konzhakovsky Kamen peak (1569 m). Throughout this section, the Urals stretches strictly along the meridian 59 ° E. d.
The central, axial part of the Northern Urals has an average height of about 700 and consists mainly of two longitudinal ridges, of which the eastern, watershed, is known as Poyasovy Kamen. On the western ridge south of 64 ° N. sh. the two-headed mountain Telpos-Iz (Stone of the winds) rises - the highest peak of the region (1617 m). Alpine landforms are not widespread in the Northern Urals, most of the peaks are domed.
Three or four ancient leveling surfaces are distinctly expressed in the Northern Urals. Another, no less characteristic feature of the relief is the wide distribution of upland terraces, developed mainly above the upper forest line or near it. The number and size of terraces, their width, length and height of the ledge are not the same not only on different mountain peaks, but also on different slopes of the same mountain.
From the west, the axial part of the Northern Urals is bordered by a wide strip of foothills formed by low, flat-topped ridges of Paleozoic rocks. Such ridges, stretched parallel to the main ridge, received the name Parm (High Parma, Ydzhidparma, etc.).
The strip of foothills on the eastern slope of the Northern Urals is less wide than on the western one. It is represented here by low (300-600 m) ridges of strongly crumpled Devonian rocks cut by intrusions. The transverse valleys of the Northern Sosva, Lozva and their tributaries divide these ranges into short isolated massifs.
The climate of the Northern Urals is cold and humid, but it is less severe than the climate of the Polar Urals. The average temperature in the foothills rises to 14 - 16°C. There is a lot of precipitation - up to 800 mm or more (on the western slope), which significantly exceeds the evaporation rate. Therefore, there are many swamps in the Northern Urals.
The Northern Urals differ sharply from the Polar Urals in the nature of vegetation and soils: tundra and bare rocks dominate in the Polar Urals, forests with a narrow green border cling to the foothills, and even then only in the south of the region, and in the Northern Urals the mountains are completely covered with dense coniferous taiga; treeless tundra is found only on isolated ridges and peaks rising above 700-800 m above sea level.
The taiga of the Northern Urals is dark coniferous. The championship belongs to the Siberian spruce; fir dominates on more fertile and drained soils, and cedar dominates on marshy and stony soils. As in the Russian Plain, the taiga of the Northern Urals is dominated by green moss spruce forests, and among them are blueberry spruce forests, which, as you know, are characteristic of the landscape of a typical (middle) taiga. Only near the Polar Urals (to the north of 64°N), at the foot of the mountains, does the typical taiga give way to the northern taiga, with more sparse and swampy forests.
The area of pine forests in the Northern Urals is small. Green moss forests acquire landscape significance only on the eastern slope south of 62°N. sh. Their development is facilitated here by a drier continental climate and the presence of stony gravelly soils.
Sukachev's larch, common in the Polar Urals, is rarely observed in the Northern Urals, and, moreover, almost exclusively as an admixture with other conifers. It is somewhat more common at the upper border of the forest and in the subalpine belt, which is especially characterized by birch crooked forests, and in the north of the region - thickets of shrubby alder.
The coniferous taiga vegetation of the Northern Urals determines the features of its soil cover. This is an area of distribution of mountain podzolic soils. In the north, in the foothills, gley-podzolic soils are common, in the south, in a typical taiga zone, podzolic soils. Along with typical podzols, weakly podzolic (hidden podzolic) soils are often found. The reason for their appearance is the presence of aluminum in the absorbing soil complex and the weak energy of microbiological processes. In the south of the region in the axial part of the Urals, at an altitude of 400 to 800 m, mountain-forest acidic non-podzolized soils are developed, which form on the eluvium and deluvium of greenstone rocks, amphibolites and granites. In different places on Devonian limestones, "northern carbonate soils" are described, boiling up at a depth of 20-30 cm.
The most characteristic representatives of the taiga fauna are concentrated in the Northern Urals. Only here is found sable adhering to cedar forests. The wolverine, the red-gray vole (Clethrionomys rufocanus) almost do not go south of the Northern Urals, and among the birds - the nutcracker (Nucifraga caryocatactes), waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus), spruce crossbill (Loxia curvirostra), hawk owl (Surnia ulula). Until now, the reindeer is known here, which is no longer found in the Middle and Southern Urals.
In the upper reaches of the Pechora, along the western slopes of the Urals and the adjacent Pechora lowland, there is one of the largest in our country, the Pechoro-Ilych State Reserve. It protects the landscapes of the mountain taiga of the Urals, passing in the west into the middle taiga of the Russian Plain.
In the vast expanses of the Northern Urals, virgin mountain-taiga landscapes still prevail. Human intervention becomes noticeable only in the south of this region, where such industrial centers as Ivdel, Krasnovishersk, Severouralsk, Karpinsk are located.
The region of the southern taiga and mixed forests of the Middle Urals
This region is bounded by the latitudes of Konzhakovsky Kamen in the north (59c30" N) and Yurma Mountain (55C25" N) in the south. The Middle Urals are well isolated orographically; The Ural Mountains are lowered here, and the strictly meridional strike of the mountain belt is replaced by a south-southeast one. Together with the Southern Urals, the Middle Urals forms a giant arc, with its convex side turned to the east, the arc goes around the Ufimsky plateau - the eastern ledge of the Russian platform.
The latest tectonic movements had little effect on the Middle Urals. Therefore, it appears before us in the form of a low peneplain with isolated, softly defined peaks and ridges, composed of the densest crystalline rocks. The railway line Perm - Sverdlovsk crosses the Urals at an altitude of 410 m. The elevation of the highest peaks is 700-800 m, rarely more.
Due to the severe destruction, the Middle Urals essentially lost its watershed significance. The Chusovaya and Ufa rivers start on its eastern slopes and saw through its axial part. River valleys in the Middle Urals are relatively wide and developed. Only in some places picturesque steeps and cliffs hang right above the riverbed.
The zone of western and eastern foothills in the Middle Urals is even wider than in the Northern. The western foothills abound in karst forms resulting from the dissolution of Paleozoic limestone and gypsum. The Ufa plateau, dissected by the deep valleys of the Aya and Yuryuzan rivers, is especially famous for them. The landscape feature of the eastern foothills is formed by lakes of tectonic and partially karst origin. Two groups stand out among them: Sverdlovskaya (lakes Ayatskoye, Tavotuy, Isetskoye) and Kaslinskaya (lakes Itkul, Irtyash, Uvildy, Argazi). The lakes, having picturesque shores, attract a lot of tourists.
Climatically, the Middle Urals are more favorable for humans than the North. Summers are warmer and longer here, and at the same time, precipitation is less. The average July temperature in the foothills is 16-18°, the annual precipitation is 500-600 mm, in the mountains in some places more than 600 mm. These climatic changes have an immediate impact on soils and vegetation. The foothills of the Middle Urals in the north are covered with southern taiga, and to the south - with forest-steppe. The steppe nature of the Middle Urals is much stronger along the eastern slope. If on the western slope there are only individual forest-steppe islands surrounded on all sides by the southern taiga (Kungursky and Krasnoufimsky), then in the Trans-Urals the forest-steppe goes in a continuous strip up to 57 ° 30 "N. latitude.
However, the Middle Urals itself is an area not of a forest-steppe, but of a forest landscape. Forests here completely cover the mountains; in contrast to the Northern Urals, only very few mountain peaks rise above the upper border of the forest. The main background is provided by spruce-pelt-fir southern taiga forests, interrupted by pine forests on the eastern slope of the ridge. In the south-west of the region there are mixed coniferous-broad-leaved forests, which include a lot of linden. Throughout the Middle Urals, especially in its southern half, birch forests are widespread, many of which arose on the site of a cut down spruce-fir taiga.
Under the southern taiga forests of the Middle Urals, as well as on the plains, soddy-podzolic soils are developed. At the foothills in the south of the region, they are replaced by gray forest soils, in some places by leached chernozems, and in the upper part of the forest belt by mountain forest and acid non-podzolized soils, which we have already met in the south of the Northern Urals.
The animal world is changing significantly in the Middle Urals. Due to the warmer climate and the diverse composition of forests, it is enriched with southern species. Along with the taiga animals living in the Northern Urals, there are common hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus), steppe and black polecat (Putorius putorius), common hamster (Cricetus cricetus), badger (Meles meles) is more common; nightingale (Luscinia luscinia), nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus), oriole (Oriolus oriolus), greenfinch (Chloris chloris) join the birds of the Northern Urals; the fauna of reptiles becomes much more diverse: legless spindle lizard (Angnis fragilis), viviparous lizard, common snake, copperhead (Coronella austriaca) appear.
Clearly expressed foothills make it possible to distinguish three landscape provinces in the region of the southern taiga and mixed forests of the Middle Urals.
The province of the Middle Cis-Urals occupies an elevated (up to 500-600 m) plain - a plateau, densely indented by river valleys. The core of the province is the Ufa Plateau. Its landscape feature is the wide development of karst (failure funnels, lakes, caves), associated with the dissolution of the Upper Paleozoic limestones and gypsum. Despite the increased moisture, there are few swamps, which is explained by good drainage. The vegetation cover is dominated by southern taiga spruce-fir and mixed (dark-coniferous-broad-leaved) forests, broken in places by islands of the northern forest-steppe.
The central province of the Middle Urals corresponds to the axial, most elevated part of the Ural Mountains, which is characterized here by a relatively low altitude and almost continuous forest cover (dark coniferous and small-leaved forests).
The province of the Middle Trans-Urals is an elevated plain - peneplain, gently descending to the east, towards the West Siberian Plain. Its surface is disturbed by remnant hills and ridges composed of granites and gneisses, as well as by numerous lake basins. In contrast to the Cis-Urals, pine and pine-larch forests dominate here, and in the north, significant areas are covered with swamps. In connection with the general increase in dryness and continentality of the climate here, further north than in the Cis-Urals, the forest-steppe, which has a Siberian appearance (with birch pegs), is advancing.
The Middle Urals is the most densely populated landscape region of the Ural Mountains. Here is the bulk of the old industrial cities of the Urals, including Sverdlovsk, Nizhny Tagil, etc. Therefore, the virgin forest landscapes in many places of the Middle Urals have not been preserved.
Forest-steppe and steppe region of the Southern Urals with a wide development of forest high-altitude belts
The Southern Urals occupies the territory from Mount Yurma in the north to the latitudinal section of the Ural River in the south. It differs from the Middle Urals in significant heights, reaching 1582 m (Mount Iremel) and 1640 m (Mount Yamantau). As in other places in the Urals, the Uraltau watershed ridge, composed of crystalline schists, is shifted to the east and is not the highest in the Southern Urals. The predominant type of relief is mid-mountain. Some bald peaks rise above the upper border of the forest. They are flat, but with steep rocky slopes, complicated by upland terraces. Recently, on the Zigalga Ridge, on the Iremel and some other high peaks of the Southern Urals, traces of ancient glaciation (trough valleys, remains of kars and moraines) have been discovered.
To the south of the latitudinal section of the Belaya River, a general drop in altitude is observed. The South Ural peneplain is clearly expressed here - a highly elevated plain with a folded base, dissected by deep canyon-like valleys of the Sakmara, Guberli and other tributaries of the Urals. Erosive dismemberment in places gave the peneplain a wild, picturesque appearance. Such are the Guberlinsky mountains on the right bank of the Urals, below the city of Orsk, composed of igneous gabbro-peridotite rocks. In other areas, different lithology caused the alternation of large meridional ridges (absolute heights of 450-500 m and more) and wide depressions.
In the east, the axial part of the Southern Urals passes into the Trans-Ural peneplain - a lower and smoother plain compared to the South Ural peneplain. In its alignment, in addition to the processes of general denudation, the abrasion and accumulative activity of the Paleogene Sea was important. The foothill parts are characterized by ridge hills with ridged-hilly plains. In the north of the Trans-Ural peneplain, many lakes with picturesque rocky shores are scattered.
The climate of the Southern Urals is drier and more continental than the Middle and Northern Urals. Summer is warm, with droughts and dry winds in the Urals. The average July temperature in the foothills rises to 20-22°. Winter continues to be cold, with significant snow cover. In cold winters, rivers freeze to the bottom and ice forms, mass death of moles and some birds is observed. Precipitation is 400-500 mm per year, in the mountains in the north up to 600 mm or more.
Soils and vegetation in the Southern Urals show a distinct altitudinal zonality. The low foothills in the extreme south and southeast of the region are covered with cereal steppes on ordinary and southern chernozems. Thickets of steppe shrubs are very typical for the Cis-Ural steppes: chiliga (Caragana frutex), blackthorn (Prunus stepposa), and in the Trans-Ural steppes, along granite outcrops, there are pine forests with birch and even larch.
In addition to the steppes, the forest-steppe zone is widespread in the Southern Urals. It occupies the entire South Ural peneplain, the small hills of the Trans-Urals, and in the north of the region it descends to the low foothills.
The forest-steppe is not the same on the western and eastern slopes of the ridge. The west is characterized by broad-leaved forests with linden, oak, Norway maple, smooth elm (Ulmus laevis) and elm. In the east and in the center of the ridge, light birch groves, pine forests and larch plantations predominate; Pribelsky district is occupied by pine forests and small-leaved forest. Due to the dissected relief and the variegated lithological composition of the rocks, forests and forb steppe are intricately combined here, and the highest areas with outcrops of dense bedrock are usually covered with forests.
The birch and pine-deciduous forests of the zone are sparse (especially on the eastern slopes of the Uraltau), strongly lightened, therefore many steppe plants penetrate under their canopy and there is almost no sharp line between the steppe and forest flora in the Southern Urals. Soils developed under light forests and mixed grass steppe - from gray forest to leached and typical chernozems - are characterized by a high content of humus. It is interesting to note that the highest humus content, reaching 15–20%, is observed not in typical chernozems, but in mountain podzolized ones, which is possibly associated with the meadow stage of development of these soils in the past.
Spruce-fir taiga on mountain-podzolic soils forms the third soil-vegetation zone. It is distributed only in the northern, most elevated part of the Southern Urals, occurring at an altitude of 600 to 1000-1100 m.
At the highest peaks there is a zone of mountain meadows and mountain tundra. The peaks of the Iremel and Yamantau mountains are covered with spotted tundra. High in the mountains, breaking away from the upper border of the taiga, there are groves of low-growing spruce forests and birch crooked forests.
The fauna of the Southern Urals is a motley mixture of taiga-forest and steppe species. In the forests of the Bashkir Urals, a brown bear, elk, marten, squirrel, capercaillie, hazel grouse are common, and next to them in the open steppe live ground squirrel (Citellus citellus,), jerboa, bustard, little bustard. In the Southern Urals, the ranges of not only northern and southern, but also western and eastern species of animals overlap one another. So, along with the garden dormouse (Elyomys quercinus) - a typical inhabitant of the broad-leaved forests of the west - in the Southern Urals you can find such eastern species as the small (steppe) pika or Eversmann's hamster (Allocrlcetulus eversmanni).
The mountain forest landscapes of the Southern Urals are very picturesque with patches of meadow glades, less often - rocky steppes on the territory of the Bashkir State Reserve. One of the sections of the reserve is located on the Uraltau ridge, the second - on the South Kraka mountain range, the third section, the lowest, is Pribelsky.
There are four landscape provinces in the Southern Urals.
Province of the Southern Cis-Urals covers the elevated ridges of the General Syrt and the low foothills of the Southern Urals. The rugged relief and continental climate contribute to a sharp manifestation of the vertical differentiation of landscapes: the ridges and foothills are covered with broad-leaved forests (oak, linden, elm, Norway maple) growing on gray forest soils, and relief depressions, especially wide floodplain terraces of rivers, are covered with steppe vegetation on chernozem soils. soils. The southern part of the province is a syrt steppe with dense thickets of dereznyaks on the slopes.
To Mid-mountain province of the Southern Urals belongs to the central mountainous part of the region. On the highest peaks of the province (Yamantau, Iremel, the Zigalga Range, etc.), the bald and pre-bald belts are clearly expressed with extensive stone placers and upland terraces on the slopes. The forest zone is formed by spruce-fir and pine-larch forests, in the southwest - coniferous-broad-leaved forests. In the north-east of the province, on the border with the Trans-Urals, the low Ilmensky Range rises - a mineralogical paradise, according to A.E. Fersman. Here is one of the oldest state reserves in the country - Ilmensky named after V. I. Lenin.
Low-mountain province of the Southern Urals includes the southern part of the Ural Mountains from the latitudinal section of the Belaya River in the north to the Ural River in the south. Basically, this is the South Ural peneplain - a plateau with small absolute marks - about 500-800 m above sea level. Its relatively flat surface, often covered with ancient weathering crust, is dissected by deep river valleys in the Sakmara basin. Forest-steppe landscapes predominate, and steppe landscapes in the south. In the north, large areas are covered with pine-larch forests; everywhere, and especially in the east of the province, birch groves are common.
Province of the Southern Trans-Urals forms an elevated, undulating plain, corresponding to the Trans-Ural peneplain, with a wide distribution of sedimentary rocks, sometimes interrupted by granite outcrops. In the eastern, slightly dissected part of the province, there are many basins - steppe depressions, in some places (in the north) - shallow lakes. The Southern Trans-Urals is distinguished by the driest, continental climate in the Urals. The annual amount of precipitation in the south is less than 300 mm, with an average July temperature of about 22°. The landscape of treeless steppes prevails on ordinary and southern chernozems; occasionally, along granite outcrops, pine forests are found. In the north of the province, a birch-spear forest-steppe is developed. Significant areas in the Southern Trans-Urals are plowed under wheat crops.
The Southern Urals is rich in iron, copper, nickel, pyrite ores, ornamental stones and other minerals. During the years of Soviet power, the old industrial cities here grew unrecognizably and changed and new centers of socialist industry appeared - Magnitogorsk, Mednogorsk, Novotroitsk, Sibay, etc. In terms of the degree of disturbance of natural landscapes, the Southern Urals in many places approaches the Middle Urals.
The intensive economic development of the Urals was accompanied by the appearance and growth of areas of anthropogenic landscapes. Field agricultural landscapes are typical for the lower altitudinal belts of the Middle and Southern Urals. Even more widespread, including the forest belt and the Polar Urals, are meadow-pasture complexes. Almost everywhere you can find artificial forest plantations, as well as birch and aspen forests that have arisen on the site of reduced spruce forests, fir forests, pine forests and oak forests. On the Kama, the Urals and other rivers, large reservoirs have been created, along small rivers and hollows - ponds. In places of open-pit mining of brown coal, iron ores and other minerals, there are significant areas of quarry-dump landscapes; in areas of underground mining, sinkholes of pseudokarst are common.
The unique beauty of the Ural Mountains attracts tourists from all over the country. Especially picturesque are the valleys of the Vishera, Chusovaya, Belaya and many other large and small rivers with their noisy, talkative water and bizarre cliffs - "stones". Vishera's "stones" steeped in legends remain in memory for a long time: Vetlan, Poljud, Pomenny. Unusual, sometimes fantastic underground landscapes of the Kungur ice cave-reserve leave no one indifferent. Climbing the peaks of the Urals, such as Iremel or Yamantau, is always of great interest. The view that opens from there on the wavy forested Ural distances lying below will reward for all the hardships of the mountain climb. In the Southern Urals, in the immediate vicinity of the city of Orsk, the Guberlinsky Mountains, a low-mountainous hillock, the “Pearl of the Southern Urals”, attract attention with their unique landscapes, and not without reason, it is customary to call Lake Turgoyak, located at the western foothills of the Ilmensky Mountains. The lake (an area of about 26 km 2), which is distinguished by highly indented rocky shores, is used for recreation.
From the book Physical Geography of the USSR, F.N. Milkov, N.A. Gvozdetsky. M. Thought. 1976.
Cis-Ural marginal foredeep with relatively gentle sedimentation in the western side and more complex in the eastern side;
The zone of the western slope of the Urals with the development of intensely crumpled and thrust-disturbed sedimentary strata of the Lower and Middle Paleozoic;
the Central Ural uplift, where among the sedimentary strata of the Paleozoic and Upper Precambrian, older crystalline rocks of the edge of the East European Platform outcrop in places;
The system of troughs-synclinoria of the eastern slope (the largest are Magnitogorsk and Tagil), made mainly by Middle Paleozoic volcanic strata and marine, often deep-sea sediments, as well as deep-seated igneous rocks (gabbroids, granitoids, less often alkaline intrusions) that break through them - the so-called. greenstone belt of the Urals;
Ural-Tobolsk anticlinorium with outcrops of older metamorphic rocks and wide development of granitoids;
East Ural synclinorium, in many respects similar to Tagil-Magnitogorsk.
At the base of the first three zones, according to geophysical data, an ancient, Early Precambrian, basement is confidently traced, composed mainly of metamorphic and igneous rocks and formed as a result of several epochs of folding. The oldest, presumably Archean, rocks come to the surface in the Taratash ledge on the western slope of the Southern Urals. Pre-Ordovician rocks in the basement of the synclinories of the eastern slope of the Urals are unknown. It is assumed that the Paleozoic volcanic strata of synclinoria are based on thick plates of hypermafic and gabbroids, which in some places come to the surface in the massifs of the Platinum-bearing belt and other related belts; these plates, possibly, are outcasts of the ancient oceanic bed of the Ural geosyncline. In the east, in the Ural-Tobolsk anticlinorium, outcrops of Precambrian rocks are rather problematic.
The Paleozoic deposits of the western slope of the Urals are represented by limestones, dolomites, and sandstones formed in conditions of predominantly shallow seas. To the east, deeper sediments of the continental slope are traced in a discontinuous band. Further east, within the eastern slope of the Urals, the Paleozoic (Ordovician, Silurian) section begins with altered volcanic rocks of basalt composition and jasper, comparable to the rocks of the bottom of modern oceans. In places above the section, there are thick, also altered spilite-natro-liparitic strata with deposits of copper pyrite ores. Younger deposits of the Devonian and partly Silurian are mainly represented by andesite-basalt, andesite-dacitic volcanics and greywackes, corresponding to the stage in the development of the eastern slope of the Urals, when the oceanic crust was replaced by a transitional type crust. Carboniferous deposits (limestones, grey-wackes, acidic and alkaline volcanics) are associated with the latest, continental stage of development of the eastern slope of the Urals. At the same stage, the bulk of the Paleozoic, essentially potassium, granites of the Urals, which formed pegmatite veins with rare valuable minerals, also intruded.
In the Late Carboniferous-Permian, sedimentation on the eastern slope of the Urals almost stopped and a folded mountain structure formed here; on the western slope at that time, the Cis-Ural marginal trough was formed, filled with a thick (up to 4-5 km) strata of detrital rocks that were carried down from the Urals - molasse. Triassic deposits have been preserved in a number of graben depressions, the occurrence of which in the north and east of the Urals was preceded by basalt (trap) magmatism. Younger strata of Mesozoic and Cenozoic platform deposits gently overlap folded structures along the periphery of the Urals.
It is assumed that the Paleozoic structure of the Urals was laid down in the Late Cambrian - Ordovician as a result of the splitting of the Late Precambrian continent and the expansion of its fragments, as a result of which a geosynclinal depression was formed with crust and oceanic-type sediments in its inner part. Subsequently, the expansion was replaced by compression, and the oceanic basin began to gradually close and “overgrow” with the newly formed continental crust; the nature of magmatism and sedimentation changed accordingly. The modern structure of the Urals bears traces of the strongest compression, accompanied by a strong transverse contraction of the geosynclinal depression and the formation of gentle scaly overthrusts - ridges.
The Ural is a whole system of mountain ranges, stretched parallel to one another in the meridional direction. As a rule, there are two or three such parallel ranges, but in some places, with the expansion of the mountain system, their number increases to four or more. So, for example, the Southern Urals is orographically very complex between 55 0 and 54 ° N. sh., where there are at least six ridges. Between the ridges lie vast depressions occupied by river valleys.
The orography of the Urals is closely related to its tectonic structure. Most often, ridges and ridges are confined to anticlinal zones, and depressions are confined to synclinal ones. Inverted relief is less common, associated with the presence of rocks more resistant to destruction in synclinal zones than in adjacent anticlinal zones. Such a character has, for example, the Zilair plateau, or the South Ural plateau, within the Zilair synclinorium.
Lower areas are replaced in the Urals by elevated ones - a kind of mountain nodes, in which the mountains reach not only their maximum heights, but also their greatest width. It is remarkable that such knots coincide with the places where the strike of the Ural mountain system changes. The main ones are Subpolar, Middle Ural and South Ural. In the Subpolar node, lying at 65 ° N. sh., Ural deviates from the south-western direction to the south. Here rises the highest peak of the Ural Mountains - Mount Narodnaya (1894 m). The Middle Urals junction is located at about 60°N. sh., where the strike of the Urals changes from south to southeast. Among the peaks of this knot, Mount Konzhakovsky Kamen (1569 m) stands out. The South Ural node is located between 55 0 and 54 0 s. sh. Here, the direction of the Ural ranges becomes south-western instead of south-western, and Iremel (1582 m) and Yamantau (1640 m) attract attention from the peaks.
A common feature of the relief of the Urals is the asymmetry of its western and eastern slopes. The western slope is gentle, passes into the Russian Plain more gradually than the eastern one, which steeply descends towards the West Siberian Plain. The asymmetry of the Urals is due to tectonics, the history of its geological development.
Another orographic feature of the Urals is associated with asymmetry - the displacement of the main watershed ridge separating the rivers of the Russian Plain from the rivers of Western Siberia to the east, closer to the West Siberian Plain. This ridge in different parts of the Urals has different names: Uraltau in the Southern Urals, Belt Stone in the Northern Urals. At the same time, it is not the highest almost everywhere; the largest peaks, as a rule, lie to the west of it. Such a hydrographic asymmetry of the Urals is the result of increased "aggressiveness" of the rivers of the western slope, caused by a sharper and faster uplift of the Cis-Urals in the Neogene compared to the Trans-Urals.
Even with a cursory glance at the hydrographic pattern of the Urals, the presence of sharp, elbow turns in most rivers on the western slope is striking. In the upper reaches of the river flow in the meridional direction, following the longitudinal intermountain depressions. Then they turn sharply to the west, sawing often high ridges, after which they again flow in the meridional direction or retain the old latitudinal direction. Such sharp turns are well expressed in Pechora, Shchugor, Ilych, Belaya, Aya, Sakmara and many others. It has been established that the rivers saw through the ridges in places where the axes of the folds are lowered. In addition, many of them, apparently, are older than mountain ranges, and their incision proceeded simultaneously with the uplift of the mountains.
A small absolute height determines the predominance of low-mountain and mid-mountain geomorphological landscapes in the Urals. The peaks of many ranges are flat, while some mountains are domed with more or less soft outlines of the slopes. In the Northern and Polar Urals, near the upper border of the forest and above it, where frosty weathering is vigorously manifested, stone seas (turmeric) are widespread. These places are also characterized by upland terraces resulting from solifluction processes and frost weathering.
Alpine landforms are extremely rare in the Ural Mountains. They are known only in the most elevated parts of the Polar and Subpolar Urals. The bulk of modern glaciers of the Urals are connected with the same mountain ranges.
"Lednichki" is not an accidental expression in relation to the glaciers of the Urals. Compared to the glaciers of the Alps and the Caucasus, the Urals look like dwarfs. All of them belong to the cirque and cirque-valley type and are located below the climatic snow boundary. The total number of glaciers in the Urals is 122, and the entire area of glaciation is only slightly more than 25 km2. Most of them are in the polar watershed part of the Urals between 67 0 -68 0 s. sh. Caro-valley glaciers up to 1.5-2.2 km long have been found here. The second glacial region is located in the Subpolar Urals between 64 0 and 65 ° N. sh.
The main part of the glaciers is concentrated on the more humid western slope of the Urals. It is noteworthy that all Ural glaciers lie in cirques of eastern, southeastern, and northeastern exposures. This is explained by the fact that they are inspired, that is, they were formed as a result of the deposition of snowstorm snow in the wind shadow of mountain slopes.
"The stone belt of the Russian Land" - this is how the Ural Mountains were called in the old days. Indeed, they seem to gird Russia, separating the European part from the Asian. The mountain ranges, stretching for more than 2,000 kilometers, do not end on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. They just submerge into the water for a short time, in order to “emerge” later - first on the island of Vaygach. And then on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. Thus, the Ural stretches to the pole for another 800 kilometers.
The "stone belt" of the Urals is relatively narrow: it does not exceed 200 kilometers, narrowing in places to 50 kilometers or less. These are ancient mountains that arose several hundred million years ago, when fragments of the earth's crust were soldered together with a long uneven "seam". Since then, although the ridges have been renewed by ascending movements, they have been more destroyed. The highest point of the Urals is Mount Narodnaya - it rises only 1895 meters. Peaks over 1000 meters are excluded even in the most elevated parts.
Very diverse in height, relief and landscapes, the Ural Mountains are usually divided into several parts. The northernmost, wedged into the waters of the Arctic Ocean, is the Pai-Khoi ridge, low (300-500 meters) ridges of which are partially submerged in glacial and marine sediments of the surrounding plains.
The Polar Urals are noticeably higher (up to 1300 meters or more). In its relief there are traces of ancient glacial activity: narrow ridges with sharp peaks (carlings); between them lie wide deep valleys (troughs), including through ones. According to one of them, the Polar Urals is crossed by a railway going to the city of Labytnangi (on the Ob). In the Subpolar Urals, which is very similar in appearance, the mountains reach their maximum heights.
In the Northern Urals, separate massifs - "stones" stand out, noticeably rising above the surrounding low mountains - Denezhkin Kamen (1492 meters), Konzhakovsky Kamen (1569 meters). Longitudinal ridges and depressions separating them are clearly expressed here. The rivers are forced to follow them for a long time before they gain strength to escape from the mountainous country along a narrow gorge. The peaks, unlike the polar ones, are rounded or flat, decorated with steps - upland terraces. Both peaks and slopes are covered with collapses of large boulders; in some places, remnants in the form of truncated pyramids (locally tumpy) rise above them.
In the north, you can meet the inhabitants of the tundra - reindeer in the forests are found bears, wolves, foxes, sables, ermines, lynxes, as well as ungulates (moose, deer, etc.).
Scientists are not always able to establish when people settled in a particular area. Ural is one such example. Traces of the activities of people who lived here 25-40 thousand years ago are preserved only in deep caves. Several sites of ancient man have been found. The northern ("Basic") was 175 kilometers from the Arctic Circle.
The Middle Urals can be attributed to the mountains with a great deal of conventionality: a noticeable dip formed in this place of the "belt". There are only a few isolated gentle hills no higher than 800 meters. The plateaus of the Cis-Urals, belonging to the Russian Plain, freely "overflow" through the main watershed and pass into the Trans-Ural Plateau - already within Western Siberia.
In the Southern Urals, which has a mountainous appearance, parallel ridges reach their maximum width. Peaks rarely overcome the thousand-meter barrier (the highest point is Mount Yamantau - 1640 meters); their outlines are soft, the slopes are gentle.
The mountains of the Southern Urals, largely composed of easily soluble rocks, have a karst relief form - blind valleys, funnels, caves and failures formed during the destruction of arches.
The nature of the Southern Urals differs sharply from the nature of the Northern Urals. In summer, in the dry steppes of the Mugodzhary ridge, the earth warms up to 30-40`C. Even a weak wind raises whirlwinds of dust. The Ural River flows at the foot of the mountains along a long depression of the meridional direction. The valley of this river is almost treeless, the current is calm, although there are also rapids.
Ground squirrels, shrews, snakes and lizards are found in the Southern steppes. Rodents (hamsters, field mice) spread on the plowed lands.
The landscapes of the Urals are diverse, because the chain crosses how many natural zones - from the tundra to the steppes. Altitudinal belts are weakly expressed; only the largest peaks are noticeably different in their bareness from the foothills overgrown with forests. Rather, you can catch the difference between the slopes. Western, still "European", are relatively warm and humid. Oaks, maples and other broad-leaved trees grow on them, which no longer penetrate the eastern slopes: Siberian, North Asian landscapes dominate here.
Nature, as it were, confirms the decision of man to draw a border between parts of the world along the Urals.
In the foothills and mountains of the Urals, the subsoil is full of untold riches: copper, iron, nickel, gold, diamonds, platinum, precious stones and gems, coal and rock salt ... This is one of the few areas on the planet where mining originated five thousand years ago and will continue to exist for a very long time.
GEOLOGICAL AND TECTONIC STRUCTURE OF THE URALS
The Ural Mountains formed in the region of the Hercynian folding. They are separated from the Russian Platform by the Cis-Ural marginal foredeep, filled with Paleogene sedimentary strata: clays, sands, gypsum, limestones.
The oldest rocks of the Urals - Archean and Proterozoic crystalline schists and quartzites - make up its water-spreading ridge.
To the west of it are Paleozoic sedimentary and metamorphic rocks crumpled into folds: sandstones, shales, limestones and marbles.
In the eastern part of the Urals, among the Paleozoic sedimentary strata, igneous rocks of various compositions are widespread. This is the reason for the exceptional wealth of the eastern slope of the Urals and the Trans-Urals with a variety of ore minerals, precious and semi-precious stones.
CLIMATE OF THE URAL MOUNTAINS
The Ural lies in the depths. mainland far from the Atlantic Ocean. This determines the continentality of its climate. Climatic heterogeneity within the Urals is associated primarily with its large extent from north to south, from the shores of the Barents and Kara Seas to the dry steppes of Kazakhstan. As a result, the northern and southern regions of the Urals find themselves in unequal radiation and circulation conditions and fall into different climatic zones - subarctic (up to the polar slope) and temperate (the rest of the territory).
The belt of mountains is narrow, the heights of the ridges are relatively small, so there is no special mountain climate in the Urals. However, meridionally elongated mountains have a rather significant effect on circulation processes, playing the role of a barrier to the prevailing western transport of air masses. Therefore, although in the mountains the climates of neighboring plains are repeated, but in a slightly modified form. In particular, at any crossing of the Urals in the mountains, the climate of more northern regions is observed than on the adjacent plains of the foothills, that is, the climatic zones in the mountains are shifted to the south compared to neighboring plains. Thus, within the Ural mountainous country, the change in climatic conditions is subject to the law of latitudinal zonality and is only somewhat complicated by altitudinal zonality. There is a change in climate from tundra to steppe.
Being an obstacle to the movement of air masses from west to east, the Urals is an example of a physiographic country where the effect of orography on climate is quite clearly manifested. This effect is primarily manifested in better moistening of the western slope, which is the first to encounter cyclones, and the Cis-Urals. At all crossings of the Urals, the amount of precipitation on the western slopes is 150 - 200 mm more than on the eastern ones.
The greatest amount of precipitation (over 1000 mm) falls on the western slopes of the Polar, Subpolar and partially Northern Urals. This is due to both the height of the mountains and their position on the main paths of the Atlantic cyclones. To the south, the amount of precipitation gradually decreases to 600 - 700 mm, again increasing to 850 mm in the most highly elevated part of the Southern Urals. In the southern and southeastern parts of the Urals, as well as in the far north, the annual precipitation is less than 500 - 450 mm. The maximum precipitation occurs during the warm period.
In winter, snow cover sets in the Urals. Its thickness in the Cis-Urals is 70 - 90 cm. In the mountains, the snow thickness increases with height, reaching 1.5 - 2 m on the western slopes of the Subpolar and Northern Urals. Snow is especially plentiful in the upper part of the forest belt. There is much less snow in the Trans-Urals. In the southern part of the Trans-Urals, its thickness does not exceed 30–40 cm.
In general, within the Ural mountain country, the climate varies from severe and cold in the north to continental and rather dry in the south. There are noticeable differences in the climate of mountainous regions, western and eastern foothills. The climate of the Cis-Urals and the western slopes of rop is close in a number of ways to the climate of the eastern regions of the Russian Plain, and the climate of the eastern slopes of rop and the Trans-Urals is close to the continental climate of Western Siberia.
The rugged relief of the mountains causes a significant variety of their local climates. Here there is a change in temperature with height, although not as significant as in the Caucasus. During the summer, temperatures drop. For example, in the foothills of the Subpolar Urals, the average temperature in July is 12 C, and at altitudes of 1600 - 1800 m - only 3 - 4 "C. In winter, cold air stagnates in the intermountain basins and temperature inversions are observed. higher than on mountain ranges.Therefore, mountains of unequal height, slopes of different wind and solar exposure, mountain ranges and intermountain basins differ from each other in their climatic features.
Climatic features and orographic conditions contribute to the development in the Polar and Subpolar Urals, between 68 and 64 N, of small forms of modern glaciation. There are 143 glaciers here, and their total area is just over 28 km2, which indicates a very small size of glaciers. Not without reason, when speaking about the modern glaciation of the Urals, the word "glaciers" is usually used. Their main types are steam (2/3 of the total number) and leaning (sloping). There are kirov-hanging and kirov-valley. The largest of them are the IGAN glaciers (area 1.25 km2, length 1.8 km) and MGU (area 1.16 km2, length 2.2 km).
The area of distribution of modern glaciation is the highest part of the Urals with a wide development of ancient glacial cirques and cirques, with the presence of trough valleys and peaked peaks. Relative heights reach 800 - 1000 m. The Alpine type of relief is most characteristic of the ridges lying to the west of the watershed, but the cirques and cirques are located mainly on the eastern slopes of these ridges. On the same ridges, the greatest amount of precipitation also falls, but due to snowstorms and avalanche snow coming from steep slopes, snow accumulates in negative forms of leeward slopes, providing food for modern glaciers, which exist due to this at altitudes of 800 - 1200 m, i.e. e. below the climatic limit.
WATER RESOURCES
The rivers of the Urals belong to the basins of the Pechora, Volga, Ural and Ob, i.e., respectively, the Barents, Caspian and Kara seas. The amount of river runoff in the Urals is much greater than in the adjacent Russian and West Siberian plains. The mountainous relief, increased precipitation, lower temperatures in the mountains favor an increase in runoff, so most of the rivers and rivers of the Urals are born in the mountains and flow down their slopes to the west and east, to the plains of the Cis-Urals and Trans-Urals. In the north, the mountains are a watershed between the river systems of the Pechora and Ob, to the south - between the basins of the Tobol, which also belongs to the Ob and Kama systems - the largest tributary of the Volga. The extreme south of the territory belongs to the Ural River basin, and the watershed shifts to the plains of the Trans-Urals.
The rivers are fed by snow (up to 70% of the flow), rain (20 - 30%) and groundwater (usually no more than 20%). Significantly increases (up to 40%) the participation of groundwater in the feeding of rivers in karst areas. An important feature of most of the rivers of the Urals is the relatively low variability of runoff from year to year. The ratio of the runoff of the most abundant year to the runoff of the least water usually ranges from 1.5 to 3.
Lakes in the Urals are very unevenly distributed. Their greatest number is concentrated in the eastern foothills of the Middle and Southern Urals, where tectonic lakes predominate, in the mountains of the Subpolar and Polar Urals, where tarns are numerous. On the Trans-Ural plateau, suffusion-subsidence lakes are common, and in the Cis-Urals there are karst lakes. In total, there are more than 6000 lakes in the Urals, each with an area of more than 1 ra, their total area is over 2000 km2. Small lakes predominate, there are relatively few large lakes. Only some lakes in the eastern foothills have an area measured in tens of square kilometers: Argazi (101 km2), Uvildy (71 km2), Irtyash (70 km2), Turgoyak (27 km2), etc. In total, more than 60 large lakes with a total an area of about 800 km2. All large lakes are of tectonic origin.
The most extensive lakes in terms of the water surface are Uvildy, Irtyash.
The deepest are Uvildy, Kisegach, Turgoyak.
The most capacious are Uvildy and Turgoyak.
The cleanest water is in the lakes Turgoyak, Zyuratkul, Uvildy (a white disk is visible at a depth of 19.5 m).
In addition to natural reservoirs, there are several thousand reservoir ponds in the Urals, including more than 200 factory ponds, some of which have been preserved since Peter the Great.
Great is the importance of the water resources of the rivers and lakes of the Urals, primarily as a source of industrial and domestic water supply for numerous cities. A lot of water is consumed by the Ural industry, especially metallurgical and chemical industries, therefore, despite the seemingly sufficient amount of water, there is not enough water in the Urals. A particularly acute shortage of water is observed in the eastern foothills of the Middle and Southern Urals, where the water content of the rivers flowing down from the mountains is low.
Most of the rivers of the Urals are suitable for timber rafting, but very few are used for navigation. Partially navigable are Belaya, Ufa, Vishera, Tobol, and in high water - Tavda with Sosva and Lozva and Tura. The Ural rivers are of interest as a source of hydropower for the construction of small hydropower plants on mountain rivers, but so far they are little used. Rivers and lakes are wonderful places for recreation.
MINERALS OF THE URAL MOUNTAINS
Among the natural resources of the Urals, a prominent role belongs, of course, to the wealth of its bowels. Among the minerals, deposits of ore raw materials are of the greatest importance, however, many of them have been discovered for a long time and have been exploited for a long time, therefore they are largely depleted.
Ural ores are often complex. In iron ores there are impurities of titanium, nickel, chromium, vanadium; in copper - zinc, gold, silver. Most of the ore deposits are located on the eastern slope and in the Trans-Urals, where igneous rocks abound.
The Urals are primarily vast iron ore and copper provinces. More than a hundred deposits are known here: iron ore (Vysokoy, Blagodat, Magnitnaya mountains; Bakalskoye, Zigazinskoye, Avzyanskoye, Alapaevskoye, etc.) and titanium-magnetite (Kusinskoye, Pervouralskoye, Kachkanarskoye). There are numerous deposits of copper-pyrite and copper-zinc ores (Karabashskoye, Sibayskoye, Gayskoye, Uchalinskoye, Blyava, etc.). Among other non-ferrous and rare metals, there are large deposits of chromium (Saranovskoye, Kempirsayskoye), nickel and cobalt (Verkhneufaleyskoye, Orsko-Khalilovskoye), bauxite (the Krasnaya Shapochka group of deposits), Polunochnoye deposit of manganese ores, etc.
Placer and primary deposits of precious metals are very numerous here: gold (Berezovskoye, Nevyanskoye, Kochkarskoye, etc.), platinum (Nizhniy Tagilskoye, Sysertskoye, Zaozernoye, etc.), silver. Gold deposits in the Urals have been developed since the 18th century.
Of the non-metallic minerals of the Urals, deposits of potassium, magnesium and table salts (Verkhnekamskoye, Solikamskoye, Sol-Iletskoye), coal (Vorkuta, Kizelovsky, Chelyabinsk, South Ural basins), oil (Ishimbayskoye) stand out. Deposits of asbestos, talc, magnesite, diamond placers are also known here. In the trough near the western slope of the Ural Mountains, minerals of sedimentary origin are concentrated - oil (Bashkortostan, Perm region), natural gas (Orenburg region).
Mining is accompanied by fragmentation of rocks and pollution of the atmosphere. The rocks extracted from the depths, getting into the zone of oxidation, enter into various chemical reactions with atmospheric air and water. The products of chemical reactions enter the atmosphere and water bodies, polluting them. Ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, the chemical industry and other industries contribute to the pollution of atmospheric air and water bodies, so the state of the environment in the industrial regions of the Urals is of concern. The Urals is the undoubted "leader" among the regions of Russia in terms of environmental pollution.
GEMS
The term "gems" can be used extremely broadly, but specialists prefer a clear classification. The science of precious stones divides them into two types: organic and inorganic origin.
Organic: Stones are created by animals or plants, for example, amber is fossilized tree resin, and pearls mature in shellfish shells. Other examples include coral, jet and tortoiseshell. Bones and teeth of terrestrial and marine animals were processed and used as material for making brooches, necklaces and figurines.
Inorganic: Hard, naturally occurring minerals with a consistent chemical structure. Most gemstones are inorganic, but of the thousands of minerals extracted from the bowels of our planet, only about twenty are awarded the high title of "gem" - for their rarity, beauty, durability and strength.
Most gemstones are found in nature in the form of crystals or their fragments. To get to know the crystals better, just sprinkle a little salt or sugar on a piece of paper and look at them through a magnifying glass. Each grain of salt will look like a small cube, and a grain of sugar will look like a miniature tablet with sharp edges. If the crystals are perfect, all their faces are flat and sparkle with reflected light. These are typical crystalline forms of these substances, and salt is indeed a mineral, and sugar refers to substances of plant origin.
Almost all minerals form crystal facets, if in nature they had the opportunity to grow in favorable conditions, and in many cases, when purchasing gemstones in the form of raw materials, you can see these facets in part or in full. The edges of crystals are not a random game of nature. They appear only when the internal arrangement of atoms has a certain order, and give more information about the geometry of this arrangement.
Differences in the arrangement of atoms within crystals cause many differences in their properties, including such as color, hardness, ease of splitting and others, which the amateur must take into account when working stones.
According to the classification of A. E. Fersman and M. Bauer, groups of precious stones are divided into orders or classes (I, II, III) depending on the relative value of the stones combined in them.
Gems of the 1st order: diamond, sapphire, ruby, emerald, alexandrite, chrysoberyl, noble spinel, euclase. They also include pearls - a precious stone of organic origin. Pure, transparent, even dense tone stones are highly valued. Poorly colored, cloudy, with cracks and other imperfections, stones of this order can be valued lower than gems of the II order.
Gems of the II order: topaz, beryl (aquamarine, sparrowite, heliodor), pink tourmaline (rubellite), phenakite, demantoid (Ural chrysolite), amethyst, almandine, pyrope, uvarovite, chromium diopside, zircon (hyacinth, yellow and green zircon), noble opal. With exceptional beauty of tone, transparency and size, the listed stones are sometimes valued along with precious stones of the 1st order.
Gems of the III order: turquoise, green and polychrome tourmalines, cordierite, spodumene (kunzite), dioptase, epidote, rock crystal, smoky quartz (rauchtopaz), light amethyst, carnelian, heliotrope, chrysoprase, semi-opal, agate, feldspars (sun stone , moonstone), sodalite, prehnite, andalusite, diopside, hematite (bloodstone), pyrite, rutile, amber, jet. Only rare species and specimens are of high value. Many of them are so-called semi-precious in terms of application and value.
The Urals have long amazed researchers with an abundance of minerals and its main wealth - minerals. What is there in the underground pantries of the Urals! Extraordinarily large hexagonal crystals of rock crystal, amazing amethysts, rubies, sapphires, topazes, wonderful jaspers, red tourmaline, the beauty and pride of the Urals is a green emerald, which is valued several times more expensive than gold.
The most "mineral" place in the region is Ilmeny, where more than 260 minerals and 70 rocks have been found. About 20 minerals were discovered here for the first time in the world. The Ilmensky mountains are a real mineralogical museum. Here there are such precious stones as: sapphire, ruby, diamond, etc., semi-precious stones: amazonite, hyacinth, amethyst, opal, topaz, granite, malachite, corundum, jasper, sun, moon and Arabic stone, rock crystal, etc. .d.
Rock crystal, colorless, transparent, usually chemically pure, almost without impurities, a kind of low-temperature modification of quartz - SiO2, crystallizing in a trigonal system with a hardness of 7 and a density of 2.65 g / cm3. The word "crystal" itself comes from the Greek word "crystalloss", which means "ice". Scientists of antiquity, starting with Aristotle and including the famous Pliny, were convinced that "in the fierce Alpine winter, ice turns into stone. The sun is not able to melt such a stone later ...". And not only the appearance, but also the ability to always remain cool contributed to the fact that this opinion lasted in science until the end of the 18th century, when the physicist Robert Boyle proved that ice and crystal are completely different substances by measuring the specific gravity of both. The internal structure of ROCK CRYSTAL is often complicated by twin intergrowths, which significantly worsen its piezoelectric homogeneity. Large pure single crystals are rare, predominantly in voids and fissures of metamorphic shales, in voids of various types of hydrothermal veins, and also in chamber pegmatites. Homogeneous transparent single crystals are the most valuable technical raw material for optical devices (spectrograph prisms, lenses for ultraviolet optics, etc.) and piezoelectric products in electrical and radio engineering.
Rock crystal is also used for the manufacture of quartz glass (raw materials of lower grades), in artistic stone-cutting art and for jewelry. Rock crystal deposits in Russia are concentrated mainly in the Urals. The name emerald comes from the Greek smaragdos, or green stone. In ancient Russia, it is known as smaragd. The emerald occupies a privileged place among precious stones, it has been known since ancient times and has been used both as an adornment and in religious ceremonies.
Emerald is a variety of beryl, a silicate of aluminum and beryllium. Emerald crystals belong to the hexagonal syngony. Emerald owes its green color to chromium ions, which have replaced some of the aluminum ions in the crystal lattice. This gemstone is rarely found in flawless crystals, as a rule, emerald crystals are badly damaged. Known and valued since antiquity, it is used for inserts into the most expensive jewelry, usually processed with a step cut, one of the varieties of which is called emerald.
Quite a few very large emeralds are known that have received individual names and have been preserved in their original form, although the largest known weighing 28200 g, or 141,000 carats, found in Brazil in 1974, as well as found in South Africa weighing 4800 g "or 24,000 carats, were sawn and faceted for jewelry inserts.
In ancient times, emeralds were mined mainly in Egypt, in the mines of Cleopatra. Precious stones from this mine settled in the treasuries of the richest rulers of the ancient world. Emeralds are believed to have been adored by the Queen of Sheba. There is also a legend that the emperor Nero watched the battles of gladiators through emerald lenses.
Emeralds of much better quality than stones from Egypt have been found in dark mica schists, along with other beryllium minerals - chrysoberyl and phenakite, on the eastern slope of the Ural Mountains near the Tokovaya River, about 80 km east of Yekaterinburg. The deposit was accidentally found by a peasant in 1830, noticing several green stones among the roots of a fallen tree. Emerald is one of the stones associated with the Supreme Spirit. It is believed that it brings happiness only to a pure, but illiterate person. The ancient Arabs believed that a person who wears an emerald does not see terrible dreams. In addition, the stone strengthens the heart, eliminates troubles, has a beneficial effect on vision, protects against seizures and evil spirits.
In ancient times, the emerald was considered a powerful talisman of mothers and sailors. If you look at a stone for a long time, then in it, like in a mirror, you can see everything secret and discover the future. This stone is credited with a connection with the subconscious, the ability to turn dreams into reality, to penetrate secret thoughts, it was used as a remedy for the bites of poisonous snakes. It was called the "stone of the mysterious Isis" - the goddess of life and health, the patroness of fertility and motherhood. He acted as a symbol of the beauty of nature. The special protective properties of the emerald are an active struggle against the deceit and infidelity of its owner. If the stone cannot resist bad qualities, it can crack.
DIAMOND - a mineral, a native element, occurs in the form of eight and dodecahedral crystals (often with rounded edges) and their parts. Diamond is found not only in the form of crystals, it forms intergrowths and aggregates, among which there are: bead - fine-grained intergrowths, ballas - spherical aggregates, carbonado - very fine-grained black aggregates. The name of the diamond comes from the Greek "adamas" or irresistible, indestructible. The unusual properties of this stone gave rise to a lot of legends. The ability to bring good luck is just one of the countless properties attributed to the diamond. Diamond has always been considered the stone of winners, it was the talisman of Julius Caesar, Louis IV and Napoleon. Diamonds first came to Europe in the 5th-6th centuries BC. At the same time, diamond gained its popularity as a precious stone relatively recently, only five hundred and a half years ago, when people learned how to cut it. The first similarity of a diamond was possessed by Charles the Bold, who simply adored diamonds.
Today, the classic brilliant cut has 57 facets, and provides the famous "play" of the diamond. Usually colorless or painted in pale shades of yellow, brown, gray, green, pink, extremely rarely black. Brightly colored transparent crystals are considered unique, given individual names and described in great detail. Diamond is similar to many colorless minerals - quartz, topaz, zircon, which are often used as its imitations. Differs in hardness - it is the hardest of natural materials (on the Mohs scale), optical properties, transparency for x-rays, luminosity in x-ray, cathode, ultraviolet rays.
The ruby got its name from the Latin rubeus, meaning red. The ancient Russian names for the stone are yahont and carbuncle. The color of rubies varies from deep pink to deep red with a purple hue. Among the rubies, the most highly valued stones are the color of "pigeon blood".
Ruby is a transparent variety of the mineral corundum, aluminum oxide. Ruby color is red, bright red, dark red or purple red. Ruby hardness 9, glass luster.
The first information about these beautiful stones dates back to the 4th century BC and is found in Indian and Burmese chronicles. In the Roman Empire, the ruby was extremely revered, and was valued much higher than the diamond. In different centuries, Cleopatra, Messalina and Mary Stuart became connoisseurs of rubies, and the ruby collections of Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Medici were once famous throughout Europe.
Ruby is recommended for paralysis, anemia, inflammation, fractures and pain in the joints and bone tissues, asthma, weakness of the heart, rheumatic heart disease, inflammation of the pericardial sac, inflammation of the middle ear, chronic depression, insomnia, arthritis, diseases of the spine, chronic inflammation of the tonsils, rheumatism. Ruby lowers blood pressure and helps to cure psoriasis. Helps with exhaustion of the nervous system, relieves night terrors, helps with epilepsy. Has a tonic effect.
PLANT AND ANIMAL WORLD OF THE URALS
The flora and fauna of the Urals is diverse, but has much in common with the fauna of the neighboring plains. However, the mountainous relief increases this diversity, causing the appearance of altitudinal belts in the Urals and creating differences between the eastern and western slopes.
Glaciation had a great influence on the vegetation of the Urals. Before the glaciation, more heat-loving flora grew in the Urals: oak, beech, hornbeam, hazel. The remains of this flora are preserved only on the western slope of the Southern Urals. With the advancement to the south, the altitudinal zonality of the Urals becomes more complicated. Gradually, the boundaries of the belts rise higher and higher along the slopes, and in their lower part, when moving to a more southern zone, a new belt appears.
South of the Arctic Circle, the forests are dominated by larch. As it moves south, it gradually rises along the slopes of the mountains, forming the upper boundary of the forest belt. Spruce, cedar, birch join the larch. Near Mount Narodnaya, pine and fir are found in the forests. These forests are located mainly on podzolic soils. There are a lot of blueberries in the grassy cover of these forests.
The fauna of the Ural taiga is much richer than the fauna of the tundra. Elk, wolverine, sable, squirrel, chipmunk, weasel, flying squirrel, brown bear, reindeer, ermine, weasel live here. Otters and beavers are found along the river valleys. New valuable animals settled in the Urals. In the Ilmensky Reserve, the acclimatization of the sika deer was successfully carried out, and the muskrat, beaver, deer, muskrat, raccoon dog, American mink, and Barguzin sable were also settled.
In the Urals, according to the difference in heights, climatic conditions, there are several parts:
Polar Ural. The mountain tundra is a harsh picture of stone placers - kurums, rocks and remnants. Plants do not create a continuous cover. Lichens, perennial grasses, creeping shrubs grow on tundra-gley soils. The animal world is represented by arctic fox, lemming, snowy owl. Reindeer, white hare, ptarmigan, wolf, ermine, weasel live both in the tundra and in the forest zone.
The subpolar Urals are distinguished by the highest heights of the ridges. Traces of ancient glaciation are more clearly visible here than in the Polar Urals. On the crests of the mountains there are stone seas and mountain tundra, which is replaced by mountain taiga down the slopes. The southern border of the Subpolar Urals coincides with 640 N. A natural national park has been formed on the western slope of the Subpolar Urals and the adjacent regions of the Northern Urals.
The Northern Urals has no modern glaciers; it is dominated by medium-altitude mountains, the slopes of the mountains are covered with taiga.
The Middle Urals is represented by dark coniferous taiga, which is replaced by mixed forests in the south, and linden massifs in the southwest. The Middle Urals is the kingdom of mountain taiga. It is covered with dark coniferous spruce and fir forests. Below 500 - 300 m they are replaced by larch and pine, in the undergrowth of which grow mountain ash, bird cherry, viburnum, elder, honeysuckle.
NATURAL UNICOMS OF THE URALS
Ilmensky ridge. The highest height is 748 meters, it is unique in the richness of its bowels. Among the almost 200 different minerals found here, there are rare and rare ones not found anywhere else in the world. For their protection, in 1920, a mineralogical reserve was created here. Since 1935 this reserve has become complex, now all nature is protected in the Ilmensky reserve.
The Kungur ice cave is a magnificent creation of nature. This is one of the largest caves in our country. It is located on the outskirts of the small industrial city of Kungur, on the right bank of the Sylva River, in the bowels of a stone mass - Ice Mountain. The cave has four tiers of passages. It was formed in the thickness of rocks as a result of the activity of groundwater, which dissolved and removed gypsum and anhydrite. The total length of all surveyed 58 grottoes and passages between them exceeds 5 km.
Environmental problems: 1) The Urals is the leader in environmental pollution (48% - mercury emissions, 40% - chlorine compounds). 2) Of the 37 polluting cities in Russia, 11 are located in the Urals. 3) Technogenic deserts have formed around 20 cities. 4) 1/3 of the rivers are devoid of biological life. 5) 1 billion tons of rocks are extracted annually, of which 80% goes to the dump. 6) Special danger - radiation pollution (Chelyabinsk-65 - plutonium production).
CONCLUSION
Mountains are a mysterious and still little known world, uniquely beautiful and full of dangers. Where else can you get from the scorching summer of the desert into the harsh winter of snow in a few hours, hear the roar of a wildly roaring stream under the overhanging rocks in a gloomy gorge into which the sun never looks. Pictures flickering outside the window of a car or car will never let you fully feel this formidable splendor ...
There is no such density of tourist facilities as in the Bakhchisarai region anywhere in the world! Mountains and the sea, rare landscapes and cave cities, lakes and waterfalls, secrets of nature and mysteries of history. Discoveries and the spirit of adventure... Mountain tourism here is not difficult at all, but any trail pleases with clean springs and lakes.
Adygea, Crimea. Mountains, waterfalls, herbs of alpine meadows, healing mountain air, absolute silence, snowfields in the middle of summer, the murmur of mountain streams and rivers, stunning landscapes, songs around the fires, the spirit of romance and adventure, the wind of freedom are waiting for you! And at the end of the route, the gentle waves of the Black Sea.
