Steppes of Russia

Clearly, aeolian processes were much more important at that time than at present. Large parts of the present temperate zone, from the cover sands of the Netherlands to the sand dunes in north-east Siberia are Ice Age (aeolian) sands. South and east of this cover sand belt lies a belt of loess deposits, extending from France, across Belgium, the southern Netherlands, Germany and large parts of Eastern Europe into the vast steppes of Russia, and further east to Siberia and China. A similar east-west loess belt exists in the USA and less extensive areas occur on the Southern Hemisphere, e.g. in the Argentinean pampas. 

The Commagene became known as Kutmuhi in Assyrian times from 1300BCE to 612BCE. After this, the Commagene passed into Persian control. It later became an important part of the Silk Road because of its natural access to Asia Minor, Uzbekistan, Bukhara and the Steppes of Russia. 

In 1852 Klaus was invited to occupy the chair of pharmacy at the University of Dorpat and to take charge of the Pharmaceutic Institute, at that time the only institution of its kind in all Russia. He accepted the appointment, left his position at Kazan in charge of Butlerov, abandoned the long-cherished steppes of the Volga, and made the long trip hack to Estoma. 

Amelung, W., Rodionov, A., Urusevskaja, I.S., Haumaier, L. and Zech, W. (2001) Forms of organic phosphorus in zonal steppe soils of Russia assessed by P NMR. Geoderma 103, 335-350. 

The landlocked Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water on Earth. Surrounded by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan, the Caspian Sea is home to myriad ecosystems. At the meeting point of the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, the Caspian region includes steppe land in the north, cold, continental deserts and semi-deserts in the northeast and east, and warmer mountain and highland systems in the south and southwest. The coastal wetlands of the Caspian basin include many shallow, saline pools, which attract a variety of bird life and biodiversity over 400 species are unique to the Caspian. In addition, the sea s native sturgeon is famous the world around for the roe it produces sturgeon from the Caspian Sea accounts for approximately 90% of the world s caviar industry. 

In 1815 he went back to Dorpat, passed the pharmacy examinations at the University, and returned to the St. Petersburg apothecary. His study of the natural sciences having awakened in him a desire to study Nature at first hand, he went to Saratov in 1817 as provisor of a pharmacy so that he might spend his leisure hours investigating the flora and fauna of die Volga steppes, or prairies, in eastern Russia. The results of this ten-year research were published in the Russian journals. 

The various steppe plant species indicate the individual hiogeochemical peculiarities. Eor example, we can discnss the results from South Ural s region, Russia. Table 24 shows the concentrations of trace elements in typical plant species of Steppe ecosystems. 

The data on annual wood biomass production in the main forest types have been taken from (Bazilevich, 1993). We used the value of maximum permissible level of lead in the wood equal to 0.(X)5 g/kg as an accepted in Russia (Moiseev, 1994). To estimate cadmium accumulation in the biomass, the background values equal to 0.25 mg/kg for coniferous species, 0.5 mg/kg for small leaf species and 0.6 mg/kg for broad leaf species (Uchvatov, 1995), were used. The metal accumulation in the wood biomass was not calculated for the areas without forest ecosystems, for example, tundra and steppe ecosystems. We supposed that metal conservation in the biomass of these natural ecosystems was only temporal with subsequent mineralization of organic matter and entering biogeochemical cycling. 

In Northeast Asia, the worst sufferers from land degradation are the Kalmykia and Astrakhan regions (6 million ha) in Russia as well as south Siberian steppe soils. In the Siberian steppe at least 25% of arable land is subject to erosion. About 12 million ha have been salinized and waterlogged with development of soil alkalization. The latter process also proceeds in the northeast Kazakhstan steppes. 

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