Geography. Козлова Е.П. - 93 стр.

     But the common parentage of the Mediterranean and the seas around Japan is still
evident in the great resemblance of the fishes found in this widely separated waters: by
contrast, the Mediterranean and the Red sea, separated by only a hundred miles or so of
land, have quite different fishes, and it wasn’t until the Suez Canal was cut in 1869 that
they began to mix.
     The second and more northern sea, the Uralian ran north from the Tethys to what is
now the Arctic Ocean and it separated the Siberian from the Scandinavian shields. About
240 million years ago, what were to be the Ural mountains began to emerge. There was a
general rising of land which lifted the level of the continent – to be above the waves,
giving Eurasia its shape. The Ural Sea disappeared – but only for a while. Succeeding
upheavals and subsidences of the continental crust created new seas separating east from
west more than once before the continent was again reunited. Thus Eurasia, as we know it
today has existed only for about 25 million years.

                                17.12 Ural Mountains

       The Ural mountain range stretching for 2500 kilometres, runs along the
meridian from cold tundra in the north to the arid semi-desert in the south, separating
the European part of Russia from the Asian one.
       These are not mountains like you find in the Caucasus or the Crimea where
there is a brilliant sunshine and luxuriant and exotic vegetation. These mountains are
just part and parcel of that same Central Russia, those same fir groves, but with
hillocks, those same meadows carpeted with dandelions and clover, but undulating.
       The Urals ridge adhered in a long narrow bundle to the so-called Russian
platform, forming its eastern edge. The range took shape some 300.000.000 years
ago, and, although it survived it was eroded. The Urals were lifted again by a fresh
upsurge of the earth’s forces, reaching a height of 1.895 metres above sea level in the
north (Mount Narodnaya) and 1.640 metres (Mount Yamantay) in the south.
       Over millions of years water, wind, heat, frost and creatures have eaten away
and eroded the Ural mountains and laid bare the wealth concealed in them. We can
count as many as a thousand minerals there, about half of all known minerals on our
planet. There are more than 12 000 places in the Urals where minerals have been
prospected. Among these minerals there are the platinum, nickel, chromium, copper.
A streak of grey Ural granites stretches along the mountain sides. The granites
brought with them gold and precious stones from lesser depths. Gems of rare beauty
have been crystallized in the veins in the granite. Boron is responsible for the
formation of tourmaline of different colors ( red, black, green). There are also jaspers,
emeralds, rubies, sapphires, aquamarines and amethysts, beautiful stones with
beautiful names.
       Where the magma has serged upwards from the depths and come into contact
with the ancient limestone rich deposits of iron ores have been formed like that of the
well-known Mount Magnitnaya in the South. There are also great deposits of coal, oil
and other mineral resources.

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