Geomorphological Settings for Past Increases of the Levels of Great Mongolian and Mongolia-Russia Transboundary Lakes

抄録

The paper discusses geomorphological aspects of former appearances of huge lakes in the Valley of Great Lakes, the Valley of Gobi Lakes in northwestern and western Mongolia and in depressions of northeastern Mongolia, and partly in bounding Russia. The problem is far from its solution, despite a progress with dating of the lake sediments reflected in recent publications. In the paper, we analyze morphometry of high levels of the lakes visible on the satellite images as series of shorelines, which are very young, not older than the Holocene age. The investigated lakes are terminal basins collecting waters from the catchments of large rivers draining the Altai, Khangai, and Khentey Mountains; two of them form more complicated lake systems: of the Khyargas Lake including several transitional lakes, and of the Torei - Khukh lakes. The discussing reasons for these rises are obviously climatic with possible high influences of the deglaciation processes in the surrounding mountains.