home » Autumn shoes » Vasyugan swamps. Zoning of wetlands in Western Siberia

Vasyugan swamps. Zoning of wetlands in Western Siberia

The division of swamps into lowland, upland and transitional by no means exhausts their endless diversity.

Therefore, there are more detailed classifications. Based on various characteristics, swamps are divided into a number of types. A clear example can serve as a rich “collection” of swamps West Siberian Plain. Swamp experts believe that in its expanses you can see almost all types of swamps that are found in the northern hemisphere.

Let's look at the Siberian swamps from above and, as it were, take an air trip over them. It will start with Far North, from the shores Kara Sea, d will end over the steppes of the Baraba Lowland.

The West Siberian Plain resembles a trapezoid in its outline: its wide base faces south, its narrow base faces north. It consists of two flat bowl-shaped depressions, between which the Siberian Uvaly stretches in the latitudinal direction - low hills up to 175-200 m in height. As a natural physical-geographical region, Western Siberia has very clear boundaries. In the west - the slopes of the Ural Mountains, in the north - the Kara Sea, in the east - the Yenisei valley and the cliffs of the Central Siberian Plateau. In the south, natural boundaries are less pronounced. The edge of the plain, gradually rising, passes into the Turgai plateau and the Kazakh small hills.

This region is very rich in large and small rivers, but its most characteristic feature is the abundance of swamps.

According to the conditions of occurrence, development, quality and quantity of peat deposits, vegetation and other features, they differ greatly from each other. These differences are closely related to natural latitudinal zonality and reveal a fairly clear pattern.

...Among the boundless green silence of the swamps, you feel like a grain of sand in the ocean. There is a feeling of abandonment, isolation from everything earthly. It’s as if all ties with the familiar world are being severed. Somewhere in the distance there is a horizon line, and all around are swamps, swamps without end and edge, riddled with rivers, interspersed with lakes, here and there with islands of forest vegetation.

The swamps are very beautiful. Like a huge motley carpet, rich, golden-red with green and brown spots. A gradual, smooth transition to dark brown tones is also common. Interspersed against this background are countless blue lakes and lakes of the most bizarre shapes, sometimes large, the area of which reaches tens and even hundreds of square kilometers, sometimes just a few meters. The blue of lakes with pairs of white swans and flocks of ducks, hummocks covered with cranberries in such abundance that their surface appears red, amber fields of ripe cloudberries, dew drops sparkling with diamonds on the eyelashes of sundews... For a swamp scientist, there are no more attractive and more beautiful landscapes on earth.

So, let's start our journey on a plane tested by the AN-2, from which everything is perfectly visible. Below us is a zone of arctic swamps. To the north of the Arctic Circle, swampy tundra stretches for many kilometers. From the height of our flight, areas resembling polygons of giant bee honeycombs are clearly visible. It’s as if an unknown land surveyor, for some unknown reason, laid out the land into sections - polygons of almost regular shape. This peculiar type of polygonal swamps is very characteristic of the tundra. The sizes of the “honeycombs” are different - from five to twenty meters in diameter. In winter, snow is blown away from the surface of swamps by the wind, and during severe frosts they are covered with deep cracks up to 80 cm deep. They are bordered by convex ridges with a layer of peat, formed during uneven freezing, thawing of permafrost and swelling of the soil. The rollers impede drainage, and a significant part of the landfill is constantly waterlogged. The accumulation of peat in such swamps is small, but it is truly of great importance: peat is abundantly covered with lichens (the famous reindeer moss is a food source for reindeer husbandry), as well as shrubs and mosses.

On the shores of the Kara Sea there are also coastal swamps, flooded sea water during surge winds. Occasionally along the river valleys you come across islands of stunted larch forest and willow trees. The severe swampiness of the tundra can be explained by three main reasons: the already mentioned location of the frozen layer close to the surface, which prevents water from penetrating deep into the interior, the flatness of the territory and the fact that the amount atmospheric precipitation here exceeds evaporation.

To the south of the polygonal ones, a zone of flat-hilly swamps begins. The mosaic landscape is composed of low (no more than two meters) hills, separated by water-logged depressions - hollows. The area of some elevations can reach several tens and even hundreds of meters. Permafrost forms a continuous shell here. The tops of the hills are covered with lichen, the slopes are covered with mosses. There are few flowering plants, they are depressed and stunted. In the hollows there is a carpet of hypnum or sphagnum mosses.

In the north Western Siberia frozen peatlands extend to approximately the 64th parallel. To the south, between 64 and 62 degrees north latitude, permafrost occupies only isolated areas. This is mainly a zone of large hummocky swamps. The mounds also alternate with hollows, but the sizes of both are much larger: the mounds are up to eight meters high. Similar to ancient Scythian mounds, whitish-gray from the lichens covering them, they create a unique, unique landscape. Both types of swamps often coexist. Large-hilly ones usually gravitate towards river valleys and old channels, while flat-hilly ones are located on watersheds. It is quite difficult to draw a clear boundary between them.

The hollows are covered with moist sedge communities or, again, with a moss cover. Sometimes the vegetation is poorly developed and bare peat is visible. During the summer, the peat thaws to the bottom and then the swamps become completely impassable. It is difficult to get through only where there are hummocks or small rises among the hollows.

As the hillocks grow, the winter winds blow on them more and more fiercely; the peaks are completely freed from snow and even the persistent ones die on them northern plants. Under the influence of frost weathering, exposed peat patches become covered with cracks, which provide shelter for oppressed but persistently surviving arctic shrubs, dwarf birch, crowberry, wild rosemary, and bog myrtle. They live much better on the leeward slopes of the hillocks. At the foot, they even form closed thickets, often dominated by dwarf birch.

They tried to dig up the mounds in the swamps: it was interesting to find out what was inside. Under a layer of peat, which serves as an excellent insulator, permafrost is well preserved, and in it, like in a shell, lies a core of sand and loam, also reliably welded together with ice like cement and penetrated by numerous ice layers.

Various assumptions have been made regarding the origin of the mounds. Eventually main reason began to be considered uneven freezing of the soil. It leads to swelling of the soil, then the work of water and wind joins in. As a result, such a unique relief gradually appears.

We are moving further and further south. Behind the Siberian ridges lie convex bogs. There are a huge number of them. In fact, they occupy about half of the entire plain. The northern taiga is dominated by the so-called sphagnum lake-ridge-hollow bogs. This is truly a natural combination of ridges, hollows and lakes. The plants on them are typically oligotrophic, adapted to life on extremely poor soils nutrients. The accumulation of peat is quite intensive, its deposits reach 2 meters in thickness.

As you move to the southern taiga, there are fewer and fewer lakes among the swamps, until they disappear completely. The swamps become ridge-hollow, often alternating with pine-shrub-sphagnum. Nature has created optimal conditions here for peat accumulation. Its average thickness is 3-4 m, and in some massifs the peat lies to a depth of 10-12 m.

Here we are in the south of the West Siberian Plain. The southern taiga is gradually giving way to small-leaved, aspen and birch forests. The appearance of the swamps is also changing. Most of them are flat, lowland, with an abundance of sedges and green mosses. Raised pine-shrub-sphagnum bogs occur in the form of islands. Woody vegetation also occupies low ridges stretching above the surface of the bog. The herbaceous vegetation is quite diverse. Sedges, watchwort, cinquefoil, poisonous wech, and green mosses cover the surface of the swamp with a lush green carpet.

There are also swamps on the southernmost edge of Western Siberia, although this is a kind of paradox - a zone of insufficient moisture begins here. Of course, the nature of the swamps is different; they are often grassy - with a predominance of reeds or sedges. Wide swampy strips stretch along river valleys, occupy interfluves, and to the south they occupy lake basins, oxbow lakes and other depressions where close groundwater creates constant local waterlogging of the upper layers of the soil.

Grassy swamps (they are more often called marshes) sometimes stretch for tens of kilometers without interruption. The wind sways the grass, and green waves roll across the surface of the swamp. In general, this is called the Barabinskaya steppe, although more than a quarter of its territory is occupied by swamps. Loans are widely spread between the Ishim and Tobol rivers, especially in their middle reaches. Swampy grassy areas surround the lake in a wide ring, descending into lowlands and old riverbeds. Peat formation also occurs. The deposits reach 1.5 meters in thickness.

The vegetation of the loans is unique. Their natives are reed, reed grass, reed grass, and various sedges. They belong to salt-tolerant plants. Reed growing along the edges and even outside the swamps, in the zone of variable moisture, serves as a geobotanical indicator of mixed chloride-sulfate salinity. In general, there are a lot of salts in the soils of Baraba, especially in non-wetlands, where there are favorable conditions for the capillary rise of saline groundwater to the surface. In such places, salt stains are a common occurrence. Some dirt roads in the Barabinskaya steppe turn completely white from salt and in summer they give a strange impression: they seem to be covered with unmelting snow.

Another interesting feature: often small areas of raised bogs, the so-called ryams, are interspersed into the borrowings. Their vegetation does not tolerate salinity at all and can only exist if it is completely isolated from the rest of the swamp thanks to the deep layer of peat underlying the ryam. The convex surface of the ryams with asymmetrical slopes usually rises above the grass cover of the plot. Pine trees grow on them; sphagnum and marsh shrubs are common at their roots. The area of ryams ranges from 4-5 to several hundred hectares. How do ryams appear among the saline soils of the Western Siberian forest-steppe? The answer is quite simple. In the forest-steppe at strong winds the snow cover is blown away from open spaces, the peat deposit freezes, and salts are redistributed. A layer forms on top fresh ice. This process is repeated several times, and with intense freezing, the desalination of individual, most watered central areas of the swamps occurs. They are then inhabited by sphagnum mosses and other plants of raised bogs. The age of the ryams varies. They arose throughout the Holocene (post-glacial time) and are still being formed.

Western Siberia is a vast storehouse of minerals. In addition to peat, there are known deposits of coal and iron ore, but the main value lies in oil and gas reserves. This region is rich in forests, fish, fur-bearing animal, mushrooms, berries. For successful economic development of such a swampy region, it is necessary to know as much as possible about swamps, completely restoring the history of their formation and the dynamics of development at the present time.

By using modern methods Research is not that difficult to go back thousands of years to find out in detail how and when swamps arose.

The State Hydrological Institute began studying the hydrological regime and structure of the marshes of Western Siberia in 1958. From this year to 1960, expeditionary work, including a large complex of studies (geobotanical, hydrological, meteorological), was carried out in the southern part of the West Siberian Plain (river basins Tury, Omi, Baksy and Kargata), since 1964 - in the central (near Lake Numto, basins of the Konda, Poika, Agana rivers, interfluves of the Vakha and Vatinsky Egan, Pima and Tromyegan) and northern (lower reaches of the Taza river, basin of the . Right Hittite) its parts.
Field research was carried out by a large team of engineers and technicians from the department of wetland hydrology and the West Siberian expedition of the State Hydrological Institute under the leadership of the heads of expeditions: P.K. Vorobyov in 1958-1960, S.M. Novikov in 1964, A.P. Bogoroditsky in 1965-1968, Y. P. Azaria in 1969-1974 The scientific supervision of expeditionary research was carried out by Dr. geogr. Sciences, Professor K. E. Ivanov and Ph.D. tech. Sciences S. M. Novikov.
Since 1965, research into the swamps of the central part of the West Siberian Plain (regions oil fields) are carried out under an agreement with Glavtyumenneftegaz. Moreover, the development of programs for the West Siberian expedition of the State Hydrological Institute and the discussion of the research results obtained are carried out jointly with Giprotyumenneftegaz of the Ministry of Oil Industry, which is the general designer of the integrated development of oil fields in Western Siberia.
The results of the above studies formed the basis of this monograph.

Certain sections of it were written by: Ph.D. tech. Sciences S. M. Novikov - Sec. 1, 4, 5, 7 - 9, paragraphs 2.1, 3.1, 3.3, 3.4; Doctor of Geography Sciences K. E. Ivanov - Sec. 19; Ph.D. geogr. Sciences E. A. Romanova - sec. 12; Ph.D. geogr. Sciences L. G. Bavina - paragraph 6.2; Ph.D. tech. Sciences G1. K-Vorobiev - clauses 3.2, 3.3; Eng. T. V. Kachalova - section. 8; Art. Eng. L. A. Koroleva - clause 3.3.3; Art. Eng. L.V. Kotova - section. 4, paragraph 5.4, 5.5; Eng. L.V. Moskvina - clause 5.2; Art. Eng. L. I. Usova - clauses 3.1, 3.4; Ph.D. geogr. Sciences K.I. Kharchenko - paragraph 6.1; Art., engineer T. A. Tsvetanova - section. 7.
In writing Sec. 9 monographs, the deputy took part. Chief Engineer of the Institute Giprotyumenneftegaz Candidate of Sciences tech. Sciences S.N. Wasserman.
Art. took part in the processing and preparation of materials. Eng. J. S. Goncharova, engineers L. V. Bush, T. A. Kirillova.
Ph.D. provided great assistance in preparing and reviewing the manuscript. geogr. sciences | M. S. Protasyev~~|.
Scientific editing of the monograph was carried out by Dr. Geogr. Sciences Professor K.E. Ivanov and Ph.D. tech. Sciences S. M. Novikov.
=================================================================================================

Introduction

West Siberian Plain, covering an area of about 2,745,000 km2 and limited on the west Ural mountains, from the north by the Kara Sea, from the east by the river. Yenisei, from the south Kuznetsk Alatau, the foothills of Altai and the Kazakh small hills, is a unique area due to its natural conditions globe. The main distinctive feature of the plain is its extremely high swampiness, caused by climatic and orographic conditions. The average swampiness of its territory is about 50%, and in certain areas (Surgut Polesie, Vasyugan, watersheds of the Lyamina, Pima, Agana rivers, etc.) - up to 70-75%. There are a huge number of lakes within the plain. According to approximate data obtained by the State Historical Institute, the total number of lakes in the territory under consideration exceeds 800 thousand. However, if we take into account all the reservoirs in the swamps with an area of less than 1 hectare, their number will increase significantly. The presence of countless lakes among the swamps creates a unique swamp-lake landscape over a significant part of the plain.
Currently, the agricultural part of Western Siberia (north of the 58th parallel of northern latitude), characterized by very high swampiness, is becoming the center of the country's oil and gas industry, contributing to the rapid development of the entire economy of this rich, but inaccessible region and the creation of the largest national economic complex here. The territory under consideration contains huge predicted reserves of oil and gas, about 10% of the country’s forest resources, largest reserves iron ores and foundry sands and kaolin; in its central and southern parts there are vast areas of rich floodplain meadows.
Development natural resources Western Siberia, associated with the development of oil and gas fields, the construction of large industrial complexes and settlements, the laying of main oil and gas pipelines, the creation of communication routes (railways and roads), the improvement waterways, as well as solving issues regarding the use forest resources, drainage of swamps, etc., requires fairly complete information about natural conditions this territory, covering various physical and geographical zones.
Among the conditions that determine the choice of rational ways for the integrated use of the rich resources of the West Siberian Plain, the leading place is occupied by hydrological and meteorological factors, under the influence of which the water-thermal regime of the territory is formed.
Hydrometeorological knowledge of the plain, especially the territory located north of the parallel of the city of Tobolsk, is very weak. The density of the stationary hydrological network on the rivers of the territory under consideration within the boundaries of the Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansiysk national districts is 1.5 times less than in the territory served by the Yakutsk Department of the Hydrometeorological Service. Compared to the economically developed regions of the country, the density of the hydrological network of the northern half of the West Siberian Plain is 30 times less. Due to the sparse population of the region, hydrological posts are confined mainly to large and medium-sized rivers. Rivers with a drainage area of less than 5000 km2 have not been studied at all. The hydrological network on the lakes and swamps of this vast territory is practically absent. Therefore, the hydrometeorological regime of vast watershed spaces occupied by swamps, which represent the main element of the landscape throughout the plain, with the exception of its southern regions, remained completely unstudied until recently. As you know, it is the swamps that determine the difficult natural conditions in which the construction and development of the wealth of this vast region is carried out.
This monograph is the first work that provides a comprehensive description of the structure, natural properties and hydrometeorological regime of vast wetlands of the West Siberian Plain and calculated parameters of hydrological elements are given that can be used in the practice of design, construction and operation of industrial and economic facilities. It also discusses the prospects for reclamation work, possible changes natural processes(swamping, drainage, reforestation, etc.) with one or another impact on the water regime of large and medium-sized rivers, as well as some ways of using hydrometeorological resources during the industrial and economic development of the region.
Due to significant changes in the latitudinal direction of the natural conditions of the plain (climate, permafrost, nature of swamps) and different hydrological knowledge different areas It turned out to be most appropriate to describe the hydrography and regime of intra-marsh rivers and lakes (Sections 7, 8) separately for its three parts: northern (southern border, which is the Siberian Uvaly), central (southern border - parallel to the city of Tobolsk) and southern. The most detailed description of the natural conditions of the wetlands of the West Siberian Plain is given for its central part, less detailed - for the northern part (permafrost zone).

Brief overview of studies of wetlands in Western Siberia

The beginning of research into swamps and wetlands of Western Siberia 1 dates back to end of the 19th century- the beginning of the 20th century, when, while studying the vegetation and soils of its southern part, characteristics of the swamps of this territory were obtained from the perspective of landscape science. Until the current century, information about the swamps of the West Siberian Plain was reduced mainly to descriptions of their presence in one or another area and were published in separate publications devoted to geographical and economic research.
Surveys and reclamation work carried out by the expedition of I. I. Zhilinsky in 1895-1904. in the wetlands adjacent to the Siberian railway, made it possible to collect fairly detailed information about the vegetation and structure of the marshes of the Baraba region and the Narym region and make a number of provisions about possible ways of their drainage and economic development.
Surveys of lands in the southern regions of the West Siberian Plain, including wetlands, received some development in the period from 1913 to 1916 in connection with the advent of a project to resettle peasants here from the European part of Russia. At this time, on the instructions of the Resettlement Administration, land surveys were carried out in Barab by P. N. Krylov (1913), in the western part of the Narym region - by D. A. Dranitsyn (1914, 1915), in the Ishim district of Tobolsk province - B. N. Gorodkov (1915, 1916), in the Tomsk province - N. I. Kuznetsov (1915). The purpose of these surveys was to identify the most suitable lands for settlement, so the main attention was paid to the study of soils and vegetation of dry lands. Swamps and wetlands were studied only incidentally. The results obtained regarding swamps - their descriptions and characteristics - are contained in the works.
Extensive and systematic studies of the swamps of Western Siberia began to be carried out only after the Great October Socialist Revolution, when the Soviet state began the comprehensive economic development of the natural resources of the eastern regions of the country.
In 1923-1930 The swamps of the southern part of Western Siberia are being studied. On the instructions of the Siberian Migration Administration, an expedition of the State Meadow Institute under the leadership of A. Ya. Bronzov takes a significant part in these studies. For the period from 1925 to
1 In this review, along with hydrological studies of swamps, closely related works on geobotanical, stratigraphic, reclamation and some other surveys of swamp landscapes are also considered.

In 1930, the expedition examined the Vasyugan swamps and collected unique material on the vegetation cover and stratigraphy of the peat deposit, on the geology, soils and hydrography of this vast territory. The main goal This expedition was to study swamps, and in this regard it was the first in Western Siberia. The results she obtained were published by A. Ya. Bronzov, M. K. Baryshnikov and R. S. Ilyin.
Somewhat later, in other regions of Western Siberia - Baraba and the western part of the forest-steppe - another expedition led by M. I. Neishtadt (1932, 1936), A. A. Genkel and P. N. Krasovsky (1937) carried out work. The task of this expedition was to study the types of bogs and determine the reserves of peat. The data obtained were used in compiling a reference book of the peat fund and establishing patterns of distribution of types of peat deposits in the territory of Baraba and the western part of the forest-steppe. Some results, in particular an assessment of the technical properties of the peat deposits of the borrowings and ryams of Baraba with a description of the stratigraphy and age of the deposits, have been published.
In the 1930s, in the north of Western Siberia, the Institute of Polar Agriculture carried out work to identify feeding grounds and reindeer pastures. Research carried out on the Yamal peninsula by V.N. Andreev, Gydansky by B.N. Gorodkov and Maly Yamal by V.S. Govorukhin provided the first information about the structure of the swamps in this area.
In connection with the development of the project for the agricultural development of Baraba, the Ministry Agriculture The USSR, together with a number of research organizations (Soil Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, All-Union and Northern Scientific Research Institutes of Hydraulic Engineering and Land Reclamation, etc.) created a special Barabinsky expedition, which in the period 1944-1951. carried out extensive survey, research and design work and obtained valuable data on climate, geology, hydrography, vegetation, industry, agriculture and other characteristics of the Baraba territory. A significant place in these studies was devoted to the study of swamps and wetlands, carried out according to a broad program (the conditions for the formation and types of swamps, the main patterns of their territorial distribution, etc. were clarified). Some results of this expedition concerning the genesis and development of ryam swamps were published in the work of M. S. Kuzmina, while a generalization of all the materials obtained by the expedition, including the Baraba swamps, was made in the monograph by A. D. Panadiadi. The monograph examines the reasons for the formation of bogs, provides a description of their various types with characteristics of peat deposits and water supply.
In the swamps of the central part of Western Siberia, extensive research in order to identify peat deposits was carried out in 1951-1956. peat exploration expeditions of Giprotorfrazvedka under the leadership of P. E. Loginov and S. N. Tyuremnov. Over the indicated six years, a huge territory of the West Siberian Plain in the forest-steppe and taiga zones was surveyed (using aerial methods). The results obtained by the expeditions, published in the works, served as the basis for the zoning of the peat fund of Western Siberia.
In the subsequent years 1961-1971. Similar work continues to be carried out in the basins of the Tromyegan, Vakha, Keti, and Vasyugan rivers by Geoltorfrazvedka under the leadership of A.V. Predtechensky.
In the Tomsk region, geobotanical surveys of swamps have been carried out for many years by scientists from Tomsk state university them. V. V. Kuibysheva JI. V. Shumilova, Yu. A. Lvov and G. G. Yasno-polskaya. As a result of these works, a large amount of material was collected and generalized on the vegetation cover and structure of swamps in this part of the West Siberian Plain.
A significant contribution to the study of wetlands in Western Siberia was made by the Krasnoyarsk Institute of Forest and Timber of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Under the leadership of N. I. Pyavchenko and his students F. Z. Glebov and M. F. Elizaryeva, comprehensive studies of forest biogeocenoses in swamps and wetlands in this part of Siberia were carried out to develop measures to increase their productivity.
Research on the marshes of the West Siberian Plain, related to the study of their typology, the process of waterlogging and age, is carried out by the Institute of Geography of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The works of N. Ya. Katz and M. I. Neishtadt gave the zoning of the swamps of this vast territory and provided data on the absolute age of the swamps. Despite the fact that this information about the absolute age of the swamps (10,000-11,000 years) was obtained from single determinations, they are of great scientific and practical interest.
Hydrological studies of the swamps of Western Siberia began in 1958 with complex work of the West Siberian expedition of the State Hydrological Institute on hypno-sedge and reed-ryam swamps forest-steppe zone. The leaders of these works were K. E. Ivanov, S. M. Novikov, V. V. Romanov, E. A. Romanova, P. K. Vorobyov. These studies were carried out according to a program that included studying the typology and morphology of swamps, the structure of peat deposits, level regime, runoff from swamps and small river catchments, evaporation, thermal regime and radiation balance, water yield of peat deposits and meteorological regime of swamps. In 1958-1959 Such expeditionary work was carried out in the Tarmansky swamp massif (near the city of Tyumen), in 1959 - in the Talagulsky and Uzaklinsky swamp massifs in the area of \u200b\u200bBarabinsk (Omi River basin), in 1960 - in the Baksinsky swamp massif, located in in the upper reaches of the Baksy and Kargat rivers, in 1962 - on swamp areas located along railway Ivdel-Ob (Midnight - Nary-Kary), in 1963-1964. in the lake area Numto and in the river basin Pima (Khanty-Mansi National District).
The most intensive and comprehensive studies of swamps and wetlands in Western Siberia began to develop in the last decade in connection with the beginning of the development of oil and gas fields discovered within its borders, located in most cases in the territory of swamps and wetlands. Since 1964, Giprotyumenneftegaz, and later the Tyumen Civil Engineering Institute, the Kalinin Polytechnic Institute, the Research Institute of Foundations and Underground Structures, the Omsk branch of Soyuzdornia, etc., began studying the swamps located in the areas of oil fields in Western Siberia.

Most major works to study the engineering and construction features of the wetlands of the Middle Ob region are carried out by Giprotyumenneftegaz under the leadership of Ya. M. Kagan, S. N. Wasserman, V. L. Trofimov, N. V. Tabakov, T. V. Lemenkov. The results of these studies have been published in numerous papers.
Research on the physical and mechanical properties of peat deposits in Siberian swamps, carried out by Kalininsky polytechnic institute, are conducted under the leadership of L. S. Amaryan. The work of the above institutes is aimed mainly at solving a number of practical problems directly related to construction in swamps and wetlands: development of oil fields, engineering preparation of territories for civil construction, laying oil pipelines and various types of communications, etc. In the period 1965-1973 gg. The expedition of the State Hydrological Institute continued to carry out comprehensive research in swamps in the areas of oil and gas fields: Teterevsko-Mortymyinsky (Konda river basin), Pravdinsky (Poika river basin), Samotlorsky (between the Vakha and Vatinsky Egan rivers), Variegansky (Agana river basin) , Fedorovsky (basin of the Tromyegana river), Medvezhye (basin of the Nadym river), "Gazovsky (lower reaches of the Taza river).
The duration and program of expeditionary work at different fields were not completely the same and depended on a number of conditions: the size of the fields, the nature natural objects, deadline for putting fields into operation, etc.
The materials of these studies made it possible not only to illuminate the patterns of the structure and water-thermal regime of swamps, rivers and lakes in the above-mentioned areas of the fields, but also to develop a number of practical recommendations on issues related to the construction and operation of oil fields in difficult natural conditions (high swampiness and water-cut areas) , including the construction of roads in swamps, extending the period of drilling wells in the warm season, methods for developing deposits located under medium and large intra-marsh lakes, etc.
The research results obtained were partially published in 1963-1971. in the works of K-E. Ivanov, S. M. Novikov, V. V. Romanov, E. A. Romanova, P. K-Vorobiev.
The swamp and river posts and hydrometeorological sites established and equipped by the GHI expedition, after completion of the expedition's field work, are transferred to the local hydrometeorological service departments, which continue the begun observations according to the standard programs provided for by the Hydrometeorological Service Manual.
Information on hydrological work carried out and currently being carried out by the institutions of the Hydrometeorological Service in Western Siberia is given in Table. 1.1. This table contains data characterizing the state of expeditionary and stationary studies of swamps in the region under consideration.
In addition to the swamp stations and posts of the Hydrometeorological Service, a number of stations of other departments operate on the territory of the West Siberian Plain, where hydrological observations are carried out to one degree or another.
West Siberian branch of VNIIGiM in the Tyumen region in 1968-1969. two experimental plots were established on peat soils: one with an area of 3 hectares on the Salairsky state farm (1968), the other

An area of 14 hectares on the collective farm “Free Labor” (1969). In these areas, a study of the water-thermal regime of drained low-lying peatlands, the conditions and nature of the operation of drainage systems is being carried out.
Another experimental reclamation station was founded by SevNIIGiM in Baraba on the Ubinsk swamp massif (Ubinskaya OMS).
Institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences have opened five hospitals in Western Siberia:
1) Tomsk - in the Timiryazevsky district of the Tomsk region (work has been carried out regularly since 1960);
2) Bakcharsky - in the Bakcharsky district of the Tomsk region (work has been ongoing since 1963);
3) “Plotnikovo” - in the Tomsk region on the spurs of the Vasyugan swamp (operating since 1956);
4 and 5) “Kharp” and “Khodyta” - in the Tyumen region north-west of the village. Lobytnangi (work has been ongoing since 1970).

The first two hospitals belong to the Krasnoyarsk Institute of Forest and Wood of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Here the work is carried out in forest swamps. The Plotnikovo station is under the jurisdiction of the Botanical Garden of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk. The Kharp and Khodyta stations belong to the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology of the Ural Scientific Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Vadim Andrianov / wikipedia.org

The Vasyugan swamps are one of the largest on Earth. They are located between the Ob and Irtysh rivers, on the Vasyugan Plain, within the borders of the Tomsk, Novosibirsk and Omsk regions.

The Vasyugan swamps are a very interesting natural phenomenon, which is distinguished by a variety of landscapes. In 2007 they entered preliminary list UNESCO heritage sites in Russia.

The Vasyugan swamps are located in places where small-leaved forests turn into the southern taiga. Their area is approximately 53,000 square meters. km, which exceeds the territory of some European countries. This is approximately two percent of the total area of all peat bogs on Earth.

The Vasyugan swamps were formed about ten thousand years ago and since then their territory has constantly increased. They extend approximately 570 km from west to east and more than 300 km from north to south.

Waterlogging of the area occurs especially quickly in Lately Thus, in the last five hundred years alone, the area occupied by swamps has increased by approximately 75%.

During the warm season, the Vasyugan swamps are almost completely impassable for any equipment.

Movement of geological parties and freight transportation to developing oil fields is carried out only in winter.

Flora and fauna of the Vasyugan swamps

The Great Vasyugan Swamp is home to many animals, including rare ones. Among the mammals found here are elk, bear, sable, squirrel, otter, wolverine and others. Until recently, it was possible to find reindeer, but today, most likely, its population has completely disappeared. Birds include hazel grouse, black grouse, curlew, golden eagle, peregrine falcon, etc.

Medicinal herbs and berries grow here, especially blueberries, cloudberries and cranberries.

The meaning of swamps

The Vasyugan swamps have a large ecological significance for the entire region, and also performs a number of biosphere functions. They represent a natural reserve for various wetland landscapes and the flora and fauna that live in them.

The total water reserves amount to approximately 400 cubic kilometers, which makes them an important reservoir of fresh water.

There are numerous small lakes here. In the Vasyugan swamps there are the sources of the rivers Vasyugan, Tara, Om, Parabig, Chizhapka, Uy and some others. The Great Vasyugan Swamp contains a significant amount of peat. Its proven reserves alone exceed a billion tons. Peat on average lies at a depth of about 2.5 meters. peat bogs

bind carbon, thereby reducing its content in the atmosphere and reducing the greenhouse effect. In addition, marsh vegetation produces oxygen.

Ecological problems Although there are almost no settlements in the Vasyugan swamps and economic activity

Among the environmental problems of the region, one can note deforestation, peat extraction, development of oil fields, poaching, etc. The development of local deposits is associated with negative impact on soils of all-terrain vehicles, oil spills and other unfavorable factors.

A serious problem is created by the falling second stages of rockets that are launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. These steps contaminate the area with the substance heptyl, which has a strong toxic effect.

Until recently, almost no attempts were made to protect this unique natural landscape. Only in 2006, in the east of the Vasyugan swamps, the Vasyugansky complex reserve was created, the territory of which totals 5090 square meters. km.

In 2007 they were included in the preliminary list of heritage sites in Russia. It is understood that the nominated property will include the territory of an existing reserve. There is a question about giving at least part of the Vasyugan swamps the status of a nature reserve, which would practically exclude any economic activity here.

How to get there?

The Great Vasyugan Swamp is distinguished by its extreme inaccessibility. Some villages located on the outskirts can still be reached by all-terrain vehicle, however, the further journey will most likely have to be covered only on foot.

It is possible to travel on a tracked all-terrain vehicle, but its use is also quite limited due to swamps. There is also the opportunity to explore the swamps from the air - some Tomsk travel agencies organize helicopter excursions.

Visiting the Vasyugan swamps is quite dangerous and requires some preparation and experience in moving through such places. There are numerous swamps and a huge number of bears.

The deserted Vasyugan swamps are a “geographical trend” of the north of the Tomsk region, which in the old days was called the Narym region. Historically, these were places of exile for political prisoners.
“God created paradise, and the devil created the Narym region,” said the first wave of Russian settlers - “service people under orders” and “exiles” (almost from the very beginning, Narym, located in the middle of swamps, began to be used as a place of exile). The second wave of exiles (political prisoners, starting in the 1930s) echoed: “God created Crimea, and the devil created Narym.” But this was said by those who found themselves here against their will. The indigenous inhabitants are the Khanty (obsolete "Ostyaks") and Selkups (obsolete "Ostyak-Samoyeds"), whose ancestors, as evidenced by the archaeological finds of the Kulai culture (bronze casting: hunting weapons and cult artifacts), lived in half-dugouts on the elevated areas of Vasyugan for at least three thousand years, such a thing would never have been said. But the Narym region is a land of swamps, and in Slavic folklore swamps are always associated with evil spirits.
Russian pioneers founded Tyumen (1586), Narym (1596) and Tomsk (1604) forts shortly after the completion of Ermak’s military expedition (1582-1585), which marked the beginning of the conquest of the Siberian Khanate in 1607. Judging by the documents , by 1720, in the Narym region, the newly arrived population lived in 12 settlements, but times were turbulent, the resistance of the local population was not broken, the nature was harsh, so only “service people” recruited “by the sovereign’s tax” settled among the Khanty and Selkups (Cossacks), clergy-missionaries. Peasants, artisans and traders bypassed the Vasyugan wilds, moving towards lands more favorable for living, but for the Kerzhak Old Believers persecuted by the authorities, the places were suitable - remote, impassable.
Since 1835, the systematic settlement of exiles began (a new influx of exiles came to Vasyugan in the 1930-1950s), it was mainly at their expense that the local population increased. Later, more active development of Western Siberia was facilitated by the dispossession of land among the peasants of the central provinces as a result of the reforms of 1861, and especially the Stolypin agrarian reform of 1906. It was necessary to look for land for arable land, and the 1908 expedition, sent by the resettlement department of the Tomsk region to Vasyugan, passed from the village Orlovka through the Vasyugan swamps to the Chertalinsky yurts and along the Vasyugan River and found suitable sites for several more villages. Along the winter road, Vasyugan residents transported frozen fish, meat, game birds, furs, berries, and pine nuts to the city in convoys, and brought back flour, textiles, and salt. Bread was not born, but later Siberians adapted to grow potatoes, cabbage, turnips, and carrots; They also found a place to graze the cattle.
In 1949, oil was found in the western part of the swamp, the Kargasok region was nicknamed the “oil Klondike”; by the early 1970s, more than 30 oil and gas fields had already been discovered in the Vasyugan (Pionerny) and Luginets (Pudino) regions. In 1970, construction of the Aleksandrovskoye - Tomsk - Anzhero - Sudzhensk oil pipeline began, and in 1976 - the Nizhnevartovsk - Parabel - Kuzbass gas pipeline. New tracked vehicles and helicopters have made the Vasyugan swamps more accessible - but also more vulnerable. Therefore, it was decided to reserve a large part of the swamp adjacent to the watershed to preserve this natural phenomenon and environmental regulation of the region.
The natural region of Vasyugan covers not only the Vasyugan swamps, but also the basins of the right tributaries of the Irtysh and the left tributaries of the Ob. This is a flat or gently undulating plain with a slight slope to the north, cut through by a network of valleys of the Bolshoy Yugan, Vasyugan, Parabel and other rivers. The swamp lies in the Ob-Irtysh watershed area and is constantly growing.
Swamp - storage of large reserves fresh water. Swamp peat is a valuable raw material and a giant natural filter that cleanses the atmosphere of excess carbon and toxic substances, thereby preventing the so-called greenhouse effect. Thus, swamps have a beneficial effect on the formation of water balance and climate over large areas. Also, wetlands are the last refuge of many rare and endangered species of animals and birds driven away from habitats transformed by humans, and the basis for maintaining the traditional use of natural resources by small peoples, in particular the indigenous inhabitants of Western Siberia.
The Vasyugan swamps are the largest swamp system in the Northern Hemisphere, a unique natural phenomenon that has no analogues. They cover about 55 thousand km 2 in the northern part of the interfluve of the Ob and Irtysh on the inclined Vasyugan plateau, rising in the center of the West Siberian Plain. Peat bogs rest on a thick layer of clay and loamy sediments; their formation is facilitated by excess moisture.
According to scientists, swamps appeared in Western Siberia in the early Holocene (about 10 thousand years ago). Local legends speak of the ancient Vasyugan sea-lake, but research by geologists says that the Great Vasyugan swamp did not occur through the overgrowth of ancient lakes, but as a result of the advance of swamps onto land under the influence of humid climate and favorable orographic conditions. Initially, on the site of the current single swamp massif there were 19 separate areas with a total area of 45 thousand km 2, but gradually the swamp absorbed the surrounding area, like the advance of desert sands. Today, the region is still a classic example of active, "aggressive" marsh formation: more than half of its current area has been added in the last 500 years, and the marshes continue to grow, increasing on average by 800 hectares per year. In the central part, peat grows more intensively upward, which is why the Vasyugan swamp has a convex shape and rises 7.5-10 m above the edges; At the same time, area expansion occurs on the periphery.
The Great Vasyugan swamp at the junction of the southern taiga, middle taiga and subtaiga (small-leaved) subzones is distinguished by a wide variety of vegetation and is heterogeneous in landscape and type of swamps (upland, lowland and transitional). The landscape alternates between ridges and depressions, swamps, intra-marsh lakes, streams and rivers (tributaries of the Irtysh and Ob).
The diversity of the marsh landscape is reflected in the local names of individual areas. Thus, “ryams” designate areas of Siberian oligotrophic (with low content nutrients, infertile) swamps with pine-shrub-sphagnum (sphagnum mosses are the source of peat formation) vegetation. “Shelomochki” - individual islands with pine-shrub-sphagnum vegetation (as on ryams) with a diameter of up to several tens of meters, rising above the surface of sedge-hypnum bogs by 50-90 cm. “Veretya” - narrow (1-2 m wide) and long (up to 1 km long) areas lying perpendicular to the surface runoff and rising 10-25 cm above the monotonous sedge-hypnum swamps; Birch, pine, Lapland and rosary-leaved willow, sedge and leaf-stem mosses (as in depressions) grow on the branches, singly or in small groups.
A characteristic feature of the Vasyugan swamp is the special veretyevo-bog lowland marshes with a polygonal-cellular surface pattern (a subtype of ridge-hollow-lake swamp), confined to saucer-shaped depressions at the top of the watershed, devoid of drainage. Their “geometric pattern” is clearly visible from an airplane and on aerial photographs.

general information

A giant swamp system in Western Siberia, the largest swamp in the Northern Hemisphere.
Location: in the northern part of the interfluve of the Ob and Irtysh, on the Vasyugan plateau in the center of the West Siberian Plain.

Administrative affiliation: a swamp on the border of the Tomsk and Novosibirsk regions, in the north-west it enters the Omsk region.
Sources of the rivers: the left tributaries of the Ob - Vasyugan, Parabel, Chaya, Shegarka, the right tributaries of the Irtysh - Om and Tara and many others.
Immediate settlements : (the swamp itself is not inhabited) Kargasok, Novy Vasyugan, Maysk, Kedrovo, Bakchar, Pudino, Parbig, Podgornoye, Plotnikovo, etc.

Nearest airports: international airport Tomsk, Nizhnevartovsk, Surgut.

Numbers

Area: approx. 55,000 km 2.

Length: from west to east 573 km and from north to south about 320 km.

Waterlogged every year: about 800 hectares.

Average heights: from 116 to 146 m (at the source of the Bakchar River), slope to the north.

Fresh water reserves: up to 400 km 3.
Number of small lakes: about 800,000.

Number of rivers and streams originating from peatlands: about 200.

Climate and weather

Continental, humid (excessive moisture zone).
Average annual temperature: -1.6°C.

Average January temperature: -20°C (up to -51.3°C).
Average temperature in July: +17°С (up to +36.1°С).
Average annual precipitation: 470-500 mm.
Snow cover (40-80 cm) from October to April (average 175 days).

Economy

Minerals: peat, oil, natural gas.
Industry: peat mining, logging, oil and gas (in the western part of the swamp).
Agriculture(in dry areas in the vicinity of the swamp): livestock raising, growing potatoes and vegetables.

Traditional crafts: hunting and fur harvesting, gathering (berries: cranberries, lingonberries, blueberries, cloudberries; medicinal herbs), fishing.

Service sector: not developed (potentially ecotourism, extreme tourism, commercial hunting and fishing outside the reserve).

Attractions

■ Natural: biosphere reserve“Vasyugansky” of federal significance (since 2014, its inclusion in the UNESCO List of sites is under consideration; 1.6 million hectares are reserved in the Novosibirsk region and 509 hectares in the Tomsk region) - on the watershed of the Ob-Irtysh interfluve.
■ Fauna: reindeer, elk, bear, wolverine, otter, sable, beaver, squirrel, etc.; waterfowl, wood grouse, hazel grouse, ptarmigan, osprey, golden eagle, white-tailed eagle, peregrine falcon, waders (curlews and godwits, including the rarest, almost extinct species - the slender-billed curlew), etc.
■ The richest berry lands: cranberries, lingonberries, cloudberries, blueberries.
■ Cultural-historical(in the vicinity): Museum of Political Exile (Narym).

Curious facts

■ There is a legend about the Devil’s creation of a swamp - liquefied earth with stunted, gnarled trees and coarse grass: “At first the earth was entirely water. God walked along it and one day he met a floating muddy bubble, which burst and the devil jumped out of it. God commanded the devil to go down to the bottom and get earth from there. Carrying out the order, the devil hid some earth behind both cheeks. Meanwhile, God scattered the delivered earth, and where it fell, dry land appeared, and on it trees, bushes and herbs. But the plants began to sprout in the devil’s mouth, and he, unable to bear it, began to spit out the soil.”
■ In 1882, the West Siberian department of the Russian Geographical Society instructed N.P. Grigorovsky to check whether “peasants from Russian provinces, schismatic Old Believers, really settled along the upper reaches of the Vasyugan and the rivers flowing into it; as if they had set up villages for themselves, had arable land and livestock, and were living, secretly indulging in their fanatical devotion.” According to the report, “726 souls of both sexes lived in Vasyugan, including minors” - and this was for more than 2000 miles!
■ In 1907, immediately after Stolypin’s land reforms, up to 200 thousand family migrants and about 75 thousand walkers came to Tomsk province in search of land to start a farm.
■ For Tomsk, the Vasyugan swamps have become the same symbol as the Klyuchevskoy volcano for Kamchatka or the Kivach waterfall for Karelia.
■ In addition to heavy tracked vehicles, drilling rigs and oil spills at mining sites, the falling second stages of launch vehicles launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome also pose an environmental threat to the Vasyugan swamps. They pollute environment toxic residues rocket fuel.
■ When the Nizhnevartovsk - Parabel - Kuzbass gas pipeline was put into operation, blue fuel from the Myldzhinskoye, Severo-Vasyuganskoye and Luginetskoye gas condensate fields came to the homes and factories of Tomsk, to the enterprises of Kuzbass... But only the residents of the Kargasoksky district, where this gas is produced, this gas is not received (according to information from the local website).
■ The Vasyugansky Nature Reserve involves a ban on hunting and logging, and this will deprive a significant part of the local residents of work, among whom there are many professional hunters. The administration of the reserve hopes to attract former hunters to become rangers to combat poaching...
■ The name of the oil workers’ settlement Novy Vasyugan is very similar to the popular ironic name “New Vasyuki” attributed to Ostap Bender. However, this name does not appear either in the book or in the films (“The Twelve Chairs”). The colorful toponym arose among the people from a confused phrase: “Vasyuki is renamed New Moscow, Moscow - Old Vasyuki.”

Among the boundless green silence of the swamps, you feel like a grain of sand in the ocean. There is a feeling of abandonment, isolation from everything earthly. It’s as if all ties with the familiar world are being severed. Somewhere in the distance there is a horizon line, and all around are swamps, swamps without end and edge, riddled with rivers, interspersed with lakes, here and there with islands of forest vegetation.

So, let's start our journey on a plane tested by the AN-2, from which everything is perfectly visible. Below us is a zone of arctic swamps. To the north of the Arctic Circle, swampy tundra stretches for many kilometers. From the height of our flight, areas resembling polygons of giant bee honeycombs are clearly visible. It’s as if an unknown land surveyor, for some unknown reason, laid out the land into sections - polygons of almost regular shape. This peculiar type of polygonal swamps is very characteristic of the tundra. The sizes of the “honeycombs” are different - from five to twenty meters in diameter. In winter, snow is blown off the surface of the swamps by the wind, and during severe frosts they become covered with deep cracks up to 80 cm deep. They are bordered by convex ridges with a layer of peat, formed during uneven freezing, thawing of permafrost and swelling of the soil. The rollers impede drainage, and a significant part of the landfill is constantly waterlogged. The accumulation of peat in such swamps is small, but it is truly of great importance: peat is abundantly covered with lichens (the famous reindeer moss is a food source for reindeer husbandry), as well as shrubs and mosses.

On the shores of the Kara Sea there are also coastal swamps that are filled with sea water during strong winds. Occasionally along the river valleys you come across islands of stunted larch forest and willow trees. The severe swampiness of the tundra can be explained by three main reasons: the already mentioned location of the frozen layer close to the surface, which prevents water from penetrating deeper, the flatness of the territory, and the fact that the amount of precipitation here exceeds evaporation.

In the north Permafrost forms a continuous shell here. The tops of the hills are covered with lichen, the slopes are covered with mosses. There are few flowering plants, they are depressed and stunted. In the hollows there is a carpet of hypnum or sphagnum mosses. Western frozen peatlands extend to approximately the 64th parallel. To the south, between 64 and 62 degrees north latitude, permafrost occupies only isolated areas. This is mainly a zone of large hummocky swamps. The mounds also alternate with hollows, but the sizes of both are much larger: the mounds are up to eight meters high. Similar to ancient Scythian mounds, whitish-gray from the lichens covering them, they create a unique, unique landscape.

Both types of swamps often coexist. Large-hilly ones usually gravitate towards river valleys and old channels, while flat-hilly ones are located on watersheds. It is quite difficult to draw a clear boundary between them.

As the hillocks grow, the winter winds blow on them more and more fiercely; the peaks are completely freed from snow and even persistent northern plants die on them. Under the influence of frost weathering, exposed peat patches become covered with cracks, which provide shelter for oppressed but persistently surviving arctic shrubs, dwarf birch, crowberry, wild rosemary, and bog myrtle. They live much better on the leeward slopes of the hillocks. At the foot, they even form closed thickets, often dominated by dwarf birch.

Various assumptions have been made regarding the origin of the mounds. As a result, the main reason was considered to be uneven freezing of the soil. It leads to swelling of the soil, then the work of water and wind joins in. As a result, such a unique relief gradually appears. We are moving further and further south. Behind the Siberian ridges lie convex bogs. There are a huge number of them. In fact, they occupy about half of the entire plain. The northern taiga is dominated by the so-called lake-ridge-hollow swamps. This is truly a natural combination of ridges, hollows and lakes. The plants on them are typically oligotrophic, adapted to life on soils extremely poor in nutrients. The accumulation of peat is quite intensive, its deposits reach 2 meters in thickness.

Nature has created optimal conditions here for peat accumulation. Its average thickness is 3-4 m, and in some massifs the peat lies to a depth of 10-12 m.

There are also swamps on the southernmost edge of Western Siberia, although this is a kind of paradox - a zone of insufficient moisture begins here. Of course, the nature of the swamps is different; they are often grassy - with a predominance of reeds or sedges. Wide swampy strips stretch along river valleys, occupy interfluves, and to the south they occupy lake basins, oxbow lakes and other depressions where close groundwater creates constant local waterlogging of the upper layers of the soil.

grass swamps (they are more often called borrowers) sometimes extend without interruption for tens of kilometers. The wind sways the grass, and green waves roll across the surface of the swamp. In general, this is called the Barabinskaya steppe, although more than a quarter of its territory is occupied by swamps. peculiar. Their natives are reed, reed grass, reed grass, and various sedges. They belong to salt-tolerant plants. Reed, growing along the edges and even outside the swamps, in the zone of variable moisture, serves as a geobotanical indicator of mixed chloride-sulfate salinity. In general, there are a lot of salts in the soils of Baraba, especially in non-wetlands, where there are favorable conditions for the capillary rise of saline groundwater to the surface. In such places, salt stains are a common occurrence. Some dirt roads in the Barabinskaya steppe turn completely white from salt and in summer they give a strange impression: they seem to be covered with unmelting snow.

Another interesting feature: often small areas of raised bogs, the so-called ryams. Their vegetation does not tolerate salinity at all and can only exist if it is completely isolated from the rest of the swamp thanks to the deep layer of peat underlying the ryam. The convex surface of the ryams with asymmetrical slopes usually rises above the grass cover of the plot. Pine trees grow on them; sphagnum and marsh shrubs are common at their roots. The area of ryams ranges from 4-5 to several hundred hectares. How do ryams appear among the saline soils of the Western Siberian forest-steppe? The answer is quite simple. In the forest-steppe, with strong winds, the snow cover from open spaces is blown away, the peat deposit freezes, and salts are redistributed. A layer of fresh ice forms on top. This process is repeated several times, and with intense freezing, the desalination of individual, most watered central areas of the swamps occurs. They are then inhabited by sphagnum mosses and other plants of raised bogs. The age of the ryams varies. They arose throughout the Holocene (post-glacial time) and are still being formed.

Western Siberia is a vast storehouse of minerals.

In addition to peat, there are known deposits of coal and iron ore, but the main value lies in oil and gas reserves. This region is rich in forests, fish, fur-bearing animals, mushrooms, and berries. For successful economic development of such a swampy region, it is necessary to know as much as possible about swamps, completely restoring the history of their formation and the dynamics of development at the present time.

Share this article: