SPACEPHOTOS

This northwest-looking, low-oblique photograph shows the nearly empty basin of Kara-Bogaz Gol, an arm of the Caspian Sea. The average elevation of the deep blue Caspian Sea is 92 feet (28 meters) below sea level. The average elevation of Kara-Bogaz Gol, which acts as a natural evaporation basin—draining water from the Caspian Sea and depositing salts along the shore of the basin—is 102 feet (31 meters) below sea level. In 1979, the government built a dike across the narrow strip of land that separates the sea and the basin. In the 1980s, the low water levels in the Caspian Sea—caused by the diversion of water upstream on the Volga River (the sea’s main source of water) for numerous government projects—allowed only a small amount of water into Kara-Bogaz Gol. The climate of this region is semiarid, but lack of precipitation during some years can cause desert-like conditions, resulting in even lower water levels in the sea. This photograph shows that much of the Kara-Bogaz Gol basin is void of water, except near its western end.