geology

Geology

Snow-covered peaks of central Altai (3000-4500 m asl) with ice-fields. Typical U-shaped valleys bear witness to more extensive Pleistocene glaciations.	The central Katun’ River valley. The rugged topography shaped by multiple mountain glaciations.	High river terraces of the Katun' River resulting from cataclysmic releases of glacial waters representing ones of the major floods in the Earth’s history.

Massive cross-stratified gravelly deposits of the last Ice Age’ cataclysmic floods.	The Aktru glacier, over 400 m thick, with lateral moraines, the Severochuyskiy Khrebet Range (4000-4300 m asl.).	Arid mountain ranges of southern Altai

Teleckoye Lake, after Lake Baikal the second deepest in Siberia (325 m) formed in a tectonic rift filled by glacial waters at the end of the last Ice Age.	Loess (fine wind-born sediment) accumulations above the Biya River inter-bedded by numerous fossil soils and representing one of the most complete records on the past climatic history in Siberia for the last ca. 250 000 years.	A geological section in the Anui River valley, NW Altai, with a strongly weathered buried red soil (terra rossa) dated to early Middle Pleistocene (ca. 700 000 year BP) and incorporating fossil pollen of a warm interglacial flora (incl. oak, lime, chestnut, maple) absent in Siberia today.