Travel to Yereymentau mountains.
Yereymentau massif is a mountain system that is located in the southeast of the Akmola region and the northeast of the Karaganda region. This mountainous island of rocky hills and ridges is bordered by a narrow ribbon of preserved undisturbed foothill steppes. It is a fragment of the vast territory of the Kazakh small hills, the so-called Kazakh folded country, and is part of the ancient Timan-Altai mountain system.
Geology Yereymentau mountains.
Geological studies show that the Yermentau mountains, together with the vast territory of the Kazakh small hills, are part of the ancient Timan-Altai mountain system, which still existed as a whole in the Pleistocene and occupied the territory stretching from the north-east of the European part of Russia through the southern part of Western Siberia to Northern Kazakhstan.
How to get Yereymentau mountains.
In the Holocene, the Timan-Altai mountain system was separated by geological processes into separate parts and collapsed for a considerable extent or covered with strata of sedimentary rocks. A relic of this system is the Kazakh small hills with a heterogeneous geological structure. There are traces of ancient and young mountain ranges and ridges crossing this elevated massif in various directions. Among the most remarkable geological formations of the small hills, the Ermentau mountain range stands out. Relict sites of different age-matched watershed territories approach it from different sides. They stretch lines of hills, sometimes very ancient and subtle. At present, one can single out Yermentau's watershed connections with the coast of the Arctic Ocean, with Central Siberia, Altai, Tarbagatai, Dzhungarsky Alatau, Chu-Ili mountains, Western Tien Shan and the European part of the country.
Sights Yereymentau mountains.
There are numerous burial grounds of the Stone and Bronze Ages, Scythian monuments, Turkic stone sculptures.
Flora and fauna Yereymentau mountains.
The fauna of Yereymentau is rare. Mountain, forest and steppe species of animals live here: argali, Siberian roe deer (spruce), badger, fox, wolf, corsac, marmot, ermine, white hare and roe, small ground squirrel, common hamster, water rat, common black grouse, gray and white partridge, common quail, whirlwind, gray pigeon, common doveroot, cornel, gray and white-fronted geese, fire-dog, mallard, pintail and others.
To date, a rich gene pool of plant species has been preserved in foothill steppes, in wide valleys, on steep and gentle slopes, and in deep gorges characteristic of the Kazakh Highlands. Relict sections of watershed territories from different directions approach the mountain massif. On them, in different geological epochs, plants settled - representatives of different geographical elements of the flora. Ermentau is the region of the most pronounced ecotypic diversity of flora, which is why scientists classify this watershed site as one of the most important protected natural areas of Northern Kazakhstan.
In a relatively small area of the mountain massif, in a variety of environmental conditions, over 400 species of vascular plants grow. Among them, rare and endangered species of interest in food, medicine, feed, decorative and scientific terms.
Of great interest to science are relic plants - living witnesses to the evolution of the plant world. Such a relic of dry-steppe vegetation is the desert-steppe wing, found on the northern spurs of the low-mountain ridge of Sunkaria. About thirteen million years ago, it was widespread in Asia. Now its small populations are found on the western coast of Lake Baikal and in Kazakhstan. This is a conservative, endangered species.
Rare plants that are of scientific importance and poorly understood are: Galitia scapular, squat euphorbia, invisible hen, rough trine, Rhizome flathead, Siberian swallow and some others.
From medicinal plants in the mountains of Ermentau are rare: spring and Volga adonises, pulmonary gentian, medium patrinia, sandy cumin, two-spiked ephedra and Ural licorice. On the territory of the reserves, one can rarely see beautifully flowering ornamental plants: Orchis broadleaf, Siberian irises, leathery and salt-loving, cross-sectional and yellowish lumbago, forest anemone, needle carnation, small hazel grouse, Siberian cornflower, cat's paw and gonyolimon superior.
Rare plants of interest in terms of feed are: hobbled Zaleski (included in the Red Book of the USSR), Korzhinsky and Sarepta; whose brilliant, penny Gmelin, ostracolum bright-colored, astragalus narrow horned and sainfoin. Feathers of Zalessky and Sarepta in terms of fodder merits deserve a test in culture. So. Zalessky's feather in the tillering phase contains 17.9% protein, and in the bumping phase - 14.7%. Chiy is a brilliant crop in the driest years and eats well before heading, contains 12.9% protein in this phase, and is salt-tolerant. Ostroholodnik is bright-colored, Gimelin's penny, Astragalus narrow-horned and sainfoin contain 11.3, respectively, in the flowering phase; 16.5; 16.7; 13.1% protein and are good pasture grasses, also worthy of testing in the culture. They are adapted to severe soil and climatic conditions; they can be used for biological reclamation of solonetzes and other inconveniences.
Of the rare food plants on the territory of the reserves there are black currants, raspberries, cotoneaster, blood-red hawthorn and prickly wild rose. In a mixture with birch and aspen there grows a rare species of sticky alder tree, listed in the Red Book of the Republic.
The Ermentau massif can be considered as a refugium or a kind of refuge and as a natural reservoir in which a variety of ecotypic conditions was the key to the conservation and evolution of species.
On the basis of a two-year field study of employees of the Department of Nature Protection of the Central Agricultural Institute, Tselingiprozem and the laboratory of complex economic research of the Institute of Economics of the Ural Scientific Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1981 and 1982, over three hundred and fifty species of vascular plants were discovered.
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