This plateau is an endless basalt plateau that has never been touched by a plow. It is located in the northwest of the Central Siberian Plateau. From the west and north, the plateau breaks off with steep ledges resembling a giant staircase. Putoran is often called "the land of ten thousand lakes and a thousand waterfalls" - in terms of the number of waterfalls, the plateau really ranks first in Russia. But getting to all this beauty on your own is not even worth thinking, you need to look for a guide. Otherwise, the risk of getting lost in deep gorges and canyons is too great.
Let's take a closer look at it …
Putorana is a vast and practically unaffected by civilization basalt plateau, rising in the north of Eastern Siberia slightly north of the Arctic Circle. The main part of the plateau is occupied by the Putoransky Nature Reserve, created in 1988 - one of the largest in Russia.
To science - primarily geology and geomorphology - this mountainous area presents a classic example of the so-called trap or stepped relief. This is a whole complex of high flat-topped massifs, separated by deep and wide stepped canyons. Such a relief arose here as a result of the uplift of an ancient lava plateau, which was formed (at the turn of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic) by the outpouring of a huge mass of hot basalts, which led to the appearance of giant tectonic faults in the lava mass. Due to the different strength of the horizontally lying basalt and tuff layers, the slopes of the formed gorges acquired a pronounced stepped character. The thickness of the lava cover in the center of Putorana reaches 1500 m, and where the mountain slopes are exposed, it can be counted up to 40 layers.
Tectonic cracks were developed over time by glaciers and are occupied by rivers and narrow deep lakes (Lama, Keta, Glubokoe, Khantayskoe, Ayan, etc.), which form its unique appearance and are very characteristic of the plateau. These exotic fjord-like lakes, reaching 100-150 km in length and depths of up to 400 m, are considered the largest in Siberia after Lake Baikal and Teletskoye. They store the richest reserves of the purest fresh water. In total, there are more than 25 thousand lakes on the plateau, but only 18 of them have an area of more than 100 sq. Km. Another decoration of the plateau is numerous waterfalls, including a 108 m high waterfall in the Kanda River valley, one of the highest in Russia.
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The main climatic boundaries divide the Putorana plateau in two directions, which determines the unexpectedly high biodiversity for these latitudes. One boundary defines the border of the northern taiga and forest-tundra, the other divides the plateau into western and eastern parts and determines the eastern limit of the distribution of western taiga vegetation.
The vegetation cover includes larch taiga, woodlands and mountain tundra. The floristic list of the reserve includes about 400 species of higher plants, including several rare, relict and endemic forms.
There are 34 species of mammals in the reserve. Here lies the migration route of the largest Taimyr population of wild reindeer in Eurasia and, obviously, in the world, numbering more than 500 thousand heads. The plateau is the only habitat in the world of one of the least studied ungulates listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation - the Putorana bighorn sheep, which was separated from the main population about 15 thousand years ago and formed as a separate subspecies.
About 140 bird species are recorded in the reserve. Most of them nest here, including rare predators - the white-tailed eagle and the gyrfalcon, the number of nesting sites of which is especially large on the plateau. Numerous Putorana reservoirs serve as resting places for thousands of migratory birds.
For the plateau, a kind of trap relief is common, consisting of huge stair-like ledges, as well as unique mesas with a height of 1000 - 1500 meters above sea level, crossed by huge canyons.
The concentration of waterfalls is higher here than anywhere else in Russia. There is no other so elevated province in the world that could compare with the Putorana plateau in terms of the number and depth of lakes. There are more than 25 thousand of them, up to 150 km long and up to 400 meters deep.
The plateau is characterized by a combination of plant and animal communities of forest (mountain-northern taiga), subalpine (mountain-forest-tundra), and alpine (mountain-tundra) altitudinal-landscape belts.
More than 1,300 plant species have been recorded here. In the basins of the Kutaramakan and Irkinda rivers, the northeastern boundaries of the ranges of Siberian larch and Siberian spruce pass. Here is the northern limit of the distribution of flying squirrels, lynxes, sables, and wood grouse.
A unique feature of the territory is that it is located within the Yenisei zoogeographic border, which is recognized as one of the largest meridional biogeographic borders of Eurasia. This is due to the increased species diversity of the local fauna.
The reserve is home to: 36 species of fish, 1 species of amphibians, 184 species of birds, 34 species of mammals. The migration route of the largest population of wild reindeer in Eurasia, the Taimyr, runs through the plateau. The poorly studied aboriginal form of the bighorn sheep lives here: about 15,000 years ago, this population was cut off from the main range of the species. Of the rare and endangered birds, special attention should be paid to the Lesser White-fronted Goose, Gyrfalcon, White-billed Loon, Red-breasted Goose, Lesser Swan, Osprey, Golden Eagle.