Shuttle-Mir Program Earth Science
Early Results
(continued)

Water Features and Water Issues: Caspian Sea


    Like the Aral Sea, water levels in the Caspian Sea are of high interest to the Earth Science community. The Caspian Sea level has been rapidly rising (about 1.5 - 2 m) for the past several years. Coastal regions, including infrastructures supporting the large oil industry, have been flooded. The NASA-Mir photography documents the flooded coastal regions of the Caspian.

NM21-704-055 Caspian Sea (March 1996)
This oblique view of the northeast corner of the Caspian Sea looks southeast. The white patch near the upper left is the ice-covered Aral Sea. The northern part of the Caspian is still ice-bound, despite the heavy spring flow into the sea from the Ural and Volga Rivers. The hazy atmosphere near the background is due to dust blowing from a region near the Aral Sea.

NM21-727-025 Volga Delta
By late March, the Caspian ice cover around the Volga Delta has thinned, and the heavy sediment load brought down by the river results in a significant plume of mud into the sea.

NM21-735-043 Volga Delta
This north-looking photograph features the large, triangular delta of the Volgariver. At the top of the image is the city of Volgagrad, the southern-most city on the Volga. The transition between the rich agricultural land of southern Russia and the drier climate around the Caspian Sea is included in this view. This view was taken in late April, 1996.

NM21-740-049 Volga Delta in Sunlight
Sunglint highlights the coastal water boundaries along the Volga. The thin lines stretching out into the sea are probably levees along ship channels, which have been flooded and eroded by waves.

NM21-704-058 Ural Delta
Like the Volga River, the Ural River is ice-bound in early March. Because of the Caspian flooding, the exposed part of the Ural delta has been reduced to a thin channel.

NM21-740-056 Ural River Delta
The Ural River drains into the Caspian Sea. This view, taken in the sunglint during the spring 1996, shows the now-flooded delta, and flooded levees along the coast. The level of the Caspian Sea has risen about 2 meters in the past few years, flooding much of the northern and eastern coastal regions of the Caspian.


NM21-704-056 Volga Delta
This is a more detailed, early March view of the Volga delta where Russia's great Volga River empties into the Caspian. The coastline of the delta has been flooded in recent years due to a 2 meter rise in sea level in the Caspian.

NM21-724-027 Zaliv Kara Bogaz-Gol, Caspian Sea
Eastern coast of the Caspian, spit separating the Zaliv Kara Bogaz Gol. The large shallow bay along the eastern shore of the Caspian, the Zaliv Kara Bogaz Gol, is an effective evaporating basin for the sea. When water levels started to rise rapidly in the early 1990s, a channel in the spit was opened, allowing Caspian Sea water to flood the Zaliv.

NM21-773-060A Oil Slick, Caspian Sea
The Caspian region has large oil reserves, and development of those reserves is big business in Baku, Azerbaijan. This is a large oil slick in the western Caspian offshore Baku, near some offshore platforms. The source of the spill is unknown, but the slick is one of the largest ever photographed from space.


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