Karasor

Karasor (Қарасор; Карасор), is a salt lake in Karkaraly District, Karaganda Region, Kazakhstan.

Karasor is the largest lake in Karaganda Region. It is located 45 km to the north of Karkaraly city. There are no settlements by the lakeshore. The nearest inhabited pace is Koyandy village, close to the eastern end. The mud at the bottom of the lake has medicinal properties.

Geography
Karasor is an endorheic lake in the central Kazakh Uplands. It stretches from east to west to the north of the Karkaraly Range and to the south of the Ayr Mountains. It is the largest of the lakes of the Karasor Basin, and is located at the bottom of the vast depression without drainage. Smaller lake Katynkol lies to the SW of the southern end, Saumalkol to the west, and Balyktykol 20 km to the east. The shape of Karasor is sinuous, narrower in its central section. The bottom of the lake is mostly silt, with a smell of hydrogen sulfide. The lakeshores are complex, some stretches are clayey or pebbly, low and gently sloping, but in certain areas they are rocky, with cliffs reaching a height of 25 m. There are two little islands on the lake, Zhumyrtkaly and Araltabe.

Fourteen small rivers flow into Karasor, including the 159 km long Taldy, which flows into the eastern end of the lake. Other rivers are the Karkaralinka, Karsakpai, Karasu, Yesenaman, Barak and Kemer. Most of them dry up in the summer. On average, the highest water level of the lake is in April and the lowest in November. Karasor usually freezes in November and thaws in late April or early May.

Flora and fauna
The land in the 8750 sqkm basin around Karasor includes plowed agricultural fields with clay and loam soils. The vegetation near the lakeshore zone is characteristic of the Kazakh steppe, including spear grass, wormwood, Siberian peashrub and fescue.

Although the lake water is highly mineralized, with a concentration of 250 g/l to 350 g/l, there are fish living in the lake. Every year at Karasor there is a large concentration of about 5,000 common shelducks during their moulting season.