The Visual Record

A photo taken June 1999 on a field trip in the Shetpe area of western Kazakhstan. Our group had climbed to the top of a chalk hill to have a look at the upper Cretaceous/Danian carbonates in the area. On the right side of the picture is a mesa like structure completely surrounded by a steep cliff. In earlier times a fort maintained for the protection of trade routes through the area was situated on the top of the mesa. The fort was only accessible by a stairway carved into the chalk cliff on the back side of the structure. At the base of the hill from where this picture was taken was a labyrinth like, dendritic, erosional network in the lower units of the chalk. This chalk unit is approximately the same age as the Dover chalk in the UK and Austin chalk in the US. I will be posting more pictures from this trip in the future. A very cool place to hike around and look at rocks. (Canon AE-1, scanned from print)