Welcome to another edition of GeoLifestyle! My adventures in my new country of residence, Kazakhstan, continue. This week, I'm sharing one of the country's most remote, but geologically intriguing, areas: the Mangystau region.
Gigantic concretions, Tiramisu-layered mountains, and breathtaking rock formations are standout features of southwestern Kazakhstan’s Mangystau Area and can be explored from Aktau, one of the country’s major cities near the Caspian Sea.
Let's take a look!
Christin Schulz
Exploration Geologist
@the.happy.geo
Area Geology
Photo by Christin Schulz
Mangystau is a massive region (165,600 square kilometers!) and unique for its combination of geology, prolific oil production, and spiritual history.
The sediments containing all the spectacular rock formations were deposited in the Tethys Sea, a prehistoric ocean that opened during the Triassic and closed during the Cenozoic.
Today, the Tethys is fragmented into the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the remnants of the Paratethys, a section of the ocean which was isolated in the Oligocene. The Black Sea and the Caspian Sea are the last remnants of the Paratethys.
Its former seabeds have created massive chalk cliffs, canyons, salt flats, and unique rock formations that make up the Mangystau area.
Mangystau contains the Paratethys' sedimentary input, dominated by limestone, sandstone, and terrestrial horizons such as red mudrocks.
Spiritual sites and history: Mangystau is a historically significant site for Islamic pilgrimage and Sufi heritage.
The area is home to several underground mosques, which are carved into the ground or limestone cliffs.
These sites were constructed between the 12th and 18th centuries.
Oil history: The development of petroleum production infrastructure during Soviet times completely transformed the region economically and scenically.
This has created an interesting contrast, whereby some of the region is filled with oilfields and pipelines next to some of the most untouched desert landscapes in the world.
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As I mentioned, this region is REMOTE. Road conditions often make traveling by 4x4 a necessity, and the language spoken here is Kazakh, not Russian. For these reasons, I highly recommend joining one of the many multi-day tours offered from Aktau.
Tours often include transportation, camping, food, and a stay in a yurt, a traditional living tent.
The region is expansive, and sites are often far apart. So, plan to spend at least three days here.
My highlights were:
Torysh, the Valley of the Balls: A spectacular site known for its several-meter-big, round concretions containing fossils in their centre
Bozzhyra Dragon Crest: An absolutely stunning formation of selectively weathered limestones
Kokala Tract: A small gorge of Jurassic sediments with some imprints and remnants left from ancient plants and animals. Its name loosely translates to Blue Mountain or Blue Fortress.
Mount Bokty and the Tiramisu Mountains: These mountains showcase absurdly colourful layers in white, red, and yellow. The white are chalk sedimentary layers, the red and pink layers feature more oxidized iron, the yellow and brown layers go back to iron hydroxide, and the grey features more lithic input from the land. They are so named because they look like tiramisu from a distance. The Kazakh name for the range is Kyzlkup, which refers to the abundance of red, which can be seen in Mount Bokty, a single mountain separated from the range.
There is a high chance of finding fossils on the trip, especially in the limestones, from sea urchins to belemnites and even shark teeth for those who are lucky!
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