Ustyurt Plateau

The Ustyurt Plateau spans about 200,000 square kilometers across Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, lying between the Caspian Sea's Mangyshlak Peninsula and Kara-Bogaz-Gol to the west and the Aral Sea, Amu Darya delta and Sarygamysh Lake to the east. It is a transboundary clay desert averaging about 150 meters in elevation, rising to a maximum of 370 meters in its southwest, built from ancient marine clay and sedimentary layers laid down when the region lay beneath a shallow sea. Its edges are marked by steep escarpments known as chinks, cliffs banded in pale pink, blue and clear white where erosion has exposed the plateau's layered sedimentary composition, and the surface holds distinctive features such as Sherkala Mountain and the rounded stone concretions of the Torysh "Valley of Balls" near Shetpe. This entity documents the Ustyurt Plateau specifically as a geological formation, an ancient marine sedimentary tableland whose eroded chink cliffs expose its layered clay composition.