Geographical position and nature of the European North
1. Highlight the main features of the geographical location of the European North.
The main features of the geographical location of the European North are:
- Exit to the White and nonfreezing Barents Sea; Neighborhood with economically developed, but poorly provided fuel and raw materials resources of the North-West, Central and Volga-Vyatka regions; The northern position, a long polar night and a short warm period; Various minerals.
2. What differentiated natural areas can you identify in the European North? How do they differ from each other? What causes heterogeneity? What cards, besides physical ones, do you need to answer?
If you look at the tectonic map, then on the territory of the district you will see clearly distinguishable two parts: the western and the eastern. At the base of the western part is the Baltic Shield, to which the deposits of metal minerals are confined. The eastern part is characterized by a powerful cover of sedimentary rocks –
According to the map of natural zones in the Northern region, it is possible to distinguish the northern tundra forest-tundra part and the southern taiga. These differences are associated with a change in the angle of incidence of the sun’s rays. When moving to the poles from the equator, this angle becomes ever smaller, the same portion of heat falls on a larger portion of the surface, and, consequently, the soil warms up less. Therefore, the farther north, the colder. Where the average temperature of the warmest month does not rise above + 10 ° C, trees can not grow. Only mildew-free mosses stand here, lichens and grasses are a zone of the tundra.
3. Name and show mineral deposits in the area. Is there a regularity in their placement? What other resources other than mineral resources are rich in the North?
The tectonic structure of the territory and the regularities of the location of mineral resources is described in the previous question. Remember the main deposits.
In addition to mineral resources, the region is rich in forest and water resources.
4. Do the seas washing the coast of the European North have an impact on the life of the entire region as a whole?
The entire history of the development of the area is connected with the Barents and the White Seas. The seas of the European North largely determine its economic specialization and now. Through the Archangel port, a significant part of the harvested timber is exported. The non-freezing port of Murmansk carries out an annual shipment of goods from Europe.
5. Once there was a project to turn the northern rivers to the south. The direction of the Pechora current was to be changed. Think about the consequences of the implementation of this project.
The author of the idea of turning part of the runoff of the Ob-Irtysh basin to the south is called Engineer J. G. Demchenko, who, as early as 1868, submitted his proposal to the Imperial Russian Geographical Society. At the beginning of the XX century. large-scale hydraulic engineering construction began. In the years 1933-1937. they built a channel for them. Moscow, according to which the Volga water is supplied to the capital for a distance of more than 100 km, the Great Fergana Canal with a length of 270 km and a number of others. In the post-war period, these works took an even larger scale, and approximately 40 km3 of water per year was redistributed in the territory of the former USSR by artificial hydraulic structures.
In the 1970-1980’s. Several projects are being developed for the transfer of northern rivers to the southern regions. For example, take from Pechora and Vychegda about 40 km3 of water a year and submit them to the Volga. Hydrotechnical system would link Pechora and Volga. On the Volga-Don canal, the northern water would also go to the Sea of Azov. Some of the water from the mouth of the Ob River could flow into this stream, through the Urals into the Pechora basin. The options for transferring water from the Ob and Irtysh to Kazakhstan and Central Asia looked much more difficult. It was supposed to irrigate vast areas of the Aral Sea, the Caspian Sea, improve the water supply of the industrial Urals, replenish the Aral Sea.
This project, which is now recalled most often, assumed the construction of a main canal with a length of 2,550 km in width of 200 m and a depth of about 16 m. The volume of the transfer is 27.5 km3 of water. This amounts to 6-7% of the runoff of the Ob over the average water years, and 10% for low-water years. In the 1980s. The cost of the project was estimated at $ 17 billion.
Considered this option: in the area of the confluence of Tobol in the Irtysh to build the Tobolsk Sea with a system of navigable locks on a dam. Pumping stations will raise water to a height of 75 m to the Turgai watershed. It was supposed that further it will go by gravity to the Aral lowland, and from this reservoir will be fed to the Amudarya, the Syr Darya and irrigation canals.
In the early 1980’s. in connection with the transfer of part of the runoff of the northern and Siberian rivers, an acute discussion unfolded.
Specialists came to the conclusion that the project of transferring part of the runoff of Siberian rivers was unjustified. Due to this and because of the lack of investors, this project was rejected.
Recently, the media again raised the problem of transferring part of the flow of Siberian rivers to the south, to the CIS countries of Central Asia.
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