Intermediate lakes of the Chulym and Kargat river valleys and their role in the evolution of the Lake Chany basin

The Chulym and Kargat Rivers flow through chains of saucer-shaped depressions, which are swampy meadows or drainage lakes. In the past, all of them were lakes short-lived in different Holocene periods. These depressions accumulated a significant amount of the Chulym and Kargat runoff and thus influenced the water balance of Lake Chany. Our studies have reconstructed the history of these depressions. A model describing their filling with sediments is proposed. The lacustrine sediments penetrated by boreholes and pits are dated by the radiocarbon method at 6.3-2.0 cal. kyr BP. The data obtained explane the long existence of Lake Chany as a shallow basin and rise in its level at ~ 2 kyr BP.