Geographic location of the East European Plain. Ecological problems of the Russian Plain. Problems of rational use of resources of the Russian Plain. Geological structure and relief

08.07.2020

The East European Plain is second in size only to the Amazonian Plain, located in South America. The second largest plain of our planet is located on the continent of Eurasia. Most of it is located in the eastern part of the mainland, the smaller one is in the western part. Because geographical position The East European Plain mainly falls on Russia, then it is often called the Russian Plain.

East European Plain: its boundaries and location

From north to south, the plain has a length of more than 2.5 thousand kilometers, and from east to west, 1 thousand kilometers. Its flat relief is explained by almost complete coincidence with the East European platform. And, therefore, large natural phenomena do not threaten her, small earthquakes and flooding are possible. In the northwest, the plain ends with the Scandinavian mountains, in the southwest - with the Carpathians, in the south - with the Caucasus, in the east - with the Mugodzhary and the Urals. Its highest part is located in the Khibiny (1190m), the lowest is located on the Caspian coast (28 m below sea level). Most of the plain is located in the forest zone, the southern and central parts are forest-steppes and steppes. The extreme south and eastern part is covered with desert and semi-desert.

East European Plain: its rivers and lakes

Onega, Pechora, Mezen, Northern Dvina are large rivers of the northern part that belong to the Arctic Ocean. The Baltic Sea basin includes such large rivers as the Western Dvina, Neman, Vistula. The Dniester, the Southern Bug, the Dnieper flow to the Black Sea. The Volga and the Urals belong to the Caspian Sea basin. The Don rushes its waters to the Sea of Azov. In addition to large rivers, there are several large lakes on the Russian Plain: Ladoga, Beloe, Onega, Ilmen, Chudskoye.

East European Plain: wildlife

Animals of the forest group, arctic and steppe live on the Russian Plain. Forest representatives of the fauna are more common. These are lemmings, chipmunks, ground squirrels and marmots, antelopes, martens and forest cats, mink, black polecat and wild boar, garden, hazel and forest dormouse and so on. Unfortunately, man has caused significant damage to the fauna of the plain. Even before the 19th century, the tarpan (wild forest horse) lived in mixed forests. Today in Belovezhskaya Pushcha they try to save bison. There is a steppe reserve Askania-Nova, in which animals of Asia, Africa and Australia settled. And the Voronezh Reserve successfully protects beavers. Moose and wild boars, which had previously been completely exterminated, reappeared in this area.

Minerals of the East European Plain

The Russian Plain contains many mineral resources that are of great importance not only for our country, but also for the rest of the world. First of all, these are the Pechora coal basin, the Kursk deposits of magnetic ore, nepheline and apathetic ores on the Kola Peninsula, the Volga-Ural and Yaroslavl oil, brown coal in the Moscow region. No less important are the aluminum ores of Tikhvin and the brown iron ore of Lipetsk. Limestone, sand, clay and gravel are distributed almost throughout the plain. Salt is mined in the Elton and Baskunchak lakes, and potash salt is mined in the Kama Cis-Urals. In addition to all this, gas is being produced (the area of the Azov coast).

EAST EUROPEAN PLAIN (Russian Plain), one of the largest plains the globe. Occupies mainly the eastern and part Western Europe, where the European part of Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, most of Ukraine, the western part of Poland and the eastern part of Kazakhstan are located. The length from west to east is about 2400 km, from north to south - 2500 km. In the north it is washed by the White and Barents Seas; in the west it borders on the Central European Plain (approximately along the valley of the Vistula River); in the southwest - with the mountains of Central Europe (Sudet and others) and the Carpathians; in the south it goes to the Black, Azov and Caspian seas and is bounded by the Crimean mountains and the Caucasus; in the southeast and east - by the western foothills of the Urals and Mugodzhary. Some researchers include the southern part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, the Kola Peninsula and Karelia into the East European Plain, others attribute this territory to Fennoscandia, the nature of which differs sharply from the nature of the plain.

Relief and geological structure.

The East European Plain geostructurally corresponds mainly to the Russian Plate of the ancient East European Platform, in the south - the northern part of the young Scythian platform, in the northeast - the southern part of the young Barents-Pechora platform.

The complex relief of the East European Plain is characterized by a slight fluctuation in elevation (average height is about 170 m). The highest heights are on the Bugulma-Belebeevskaya (up to 479 m) and Podolskaya (up to 471 m, Mount Kamula) uplands, the lowest (about 27 m below sea level, 2001; the lowest point in Russia) - on the coast of the Caspian Sea. On the East European Plain, two geomorphological regions are distinguished: the northern moraine with glacial landforms and the southern extra-morainic with erosional landforms. The northern moraine region is characterized by lowlands and plains (Baltic, Upper Volga, Meshcherskaya, etc.), as well as small uplands (Vepsovskaya, Zhemaitskaya, Khaanya, etc.). To the east is the Timan Ridge. The far north is occupied by vast coastal lowlands (Pechora and others). In the northwest, in the area of the Valdai glaciation, accumulative glacial relief prevails: hilly and ridge-moraine, depression with flat lacustrine-glacial and outwash plains. There are many swamps and lakes (Chudsko-Pskovskoye, Ilmen, Upper Volga lakes, Beloe, etc.) - the so-called lake area. To the south and east, in the area of distribution of the more ancient Moscow glaciation, smoothed undulating moraine plains, reworked by erosion, are characteristic; there are basins of lowered lakes. Moraine-erosion uplands and ridges (Belarusian Ridge, Smolensk-Moscow Upland, and others) alternate with moraine, outwash, lacustrine-glacial, and alluvial lowlands and plains (Mologo-Sheksninskaya, Upper Volga, and others). Ravines and gullies are more common, as well as river valleys with asymmetric slopes. Along the southern border of the Moscow glaciation, woodlands (Polesskaya lowland, etc.) and opolye (Vladimirskoye, etc.) are typical.

The southern extra-morainic region of the East European Plain is characterized by large uplands with an erosive ravine-beam relief (Volynskaya, Podolskaya, Pridneprovskaya, Azovskaya, Central Russian, Volga, Ergeni, Bugulma-Belebeevskaya, General Syrt, etc.) and outwash, alluvial accumulative lowlands and plains related to the region of the Dnieper glaciation (Pridneprovskaya, Oksko-Donskaya, etc.). Wide asymmetric terraced river valleys are characteristic. In the southwest (the Black Sea and Dnieper lowlands, the Volyn and Podolsk uplands, etc.) there are flat watersheds with shallow steppe depressions, the so-called "saucers", formed due to the widespread development of loess and loess-like loams. In the northeast (High Trans-Volga, General Syrt, etc.), where there are no loess-like deposits, and bedrocks come to the surface, the watersheds are complicated by terraces, and the peaks are weathered remnants, the so-called shikhans. In the south and southeast - flat coastal accumulative lowlands (Black Sea, Azov, Caspian).

Climate. In the extreme north of the East European Plain there is a subarctic climate, in most of the plain it is temperate continental with the dominance of western air masses. As you move away from Atlantic Ocean to the east, the climate becomes more continental, harsh and dry, and in the southeast, to Caspian lowland, - continental, with hot dry summers and cold winters with little snow. average temperature January from -2 to -5 °С, in the southwest it drops to -20 °С in the northeast. The average July temperature increases from north to south from 6 to 23-24 °C and up to 25 °C in the southeast. The northern and central parts of the plain are characterized by excessive and sufficient moisture, the southern - insufficient and arid. The most humid part of the East European Plain (between 55-60° north latitude) receives 700-800 mm of precipitation per year in the west and 600-700 mm in the east. Their number decreases to the north (in the tundra 250-300 mm) and to the south, but especially to the southeast (in the semi-desert and desert 150-200 mm). The maximum precipitation occurs in summer. In winter, snow cover (10-20 cm thick) lies from 60 days a year in the south to 220 days (60-70 cm thick) in the northeast. Frosts, droughts and dry winds are frequent in the forest-steppe and steppe; in the semi-desert and desert - dust storms.

Rivers and lakes. Most of the rivers of the East European Plain belong to the Atlantic basins [the Neva, Daugava (Western Dvina), Vistula, Neman, etc. flow into the Baltic Sea; to the Black Sea - Dnieper, Dniester, Southern Bug; into the Sea of Azov - Don, Kuban, etc.] and the Arctic Oceans (the Pechora flows into the Barents Sea; into the White Sea - Mezen, Northern Dvina, Onega, etc.). The Volga ( largest river Europe), Ural, Emba, Bolshoi Uzen, Maly Uzen, etc. All rivers are predominantly snow-fed with spring floods. In the southwest of the East European Plain, the rivers do not freeze every year, in the northeast the freeze lasts up to 8 months. The long-term runoff modulus decreases from 10-12 l/s per km2 in the north to 0.1 l/s per km2 or less in the southeast. The hydrographic network has undergone strong anthropogenic changes: a system of canals (Volga-Baltic, White Sea-Baltic, etc.) connects all the seas washing the East European Plain. The flow of many rivers, especially those flowing south, is regulated. Significant sections of the Volga, Kama, Dnieper, Dniester, and others have been turned into cascades of reservoirs (Rybinsk, Kuibyshev, Tsimlyansk, Kremenchug, Kakhovskoe, and others). There are numerous lakes: glacial-tectonic (Ladoga and Onega - the largest in Europe), moraine (Chudsko-Pskovskoye, Ilmen, Beloe, etc.), etc. Salt tectonics played a role in the formation of salt lakes (Baskunchak, Elton, Aralsor, Inder), since some of them arose during the destruction of salt domes.

natural landscapes. The East European Plain is a classic example of a territory with a clearly defined latitudinal and sublatitudinal zonality of landscapes. Almost the entire plain is located in the temperate geographical zone, and only the northern part is in the subarctic zone. In the north, where permafrost is common, tundras are developed: moss-lichen and shrubs (dwarf birch, willow) on tundra gley, marsh soils and podburs. To the south, a forest-tundra zone with undersized birch and spruce woodlands stretches in a narrow strip. About 50% of the territory of the plain is occupied by forests. The zone of dark coniferous (mainly spruce, in the east - with the participation of fir) European taiga, swampy in places, on podzolic soils and podzols is expanding to the east. To the south there is a subzone of mixed coniferous-broad-leaved (oak, spruce, pine) forests on soddy-podzolic soils. Pine forests are developed along the river valleys. In the west, from the coast of the Baltic Sea to the foothills of the Carpathians, a subzone of broad-leaved (oak, linden, ash, maple, hornbeam) forests stretches on gray forest soils; forests wedged out to the Volga and have an insular character of distribution in the east. Primary forests are often replaced by secondary birch and aspen forests, which occupy 50-70% of the forest area. Peculiar landscapes of opal areas - with plowed flat areas, the remains of oak forests and a ravine-beam network along the slopes, as well as woodlands - swampy lowlands with pine forests. From the northern part of Moldova to the Southern Urals, a forest-steppe zone stretches with oak forests (mostly cut down) on gray forest soils and rich forb-cereal meadow steppes (preserved in reserves) on chernozems (the main fund of arable land). The share of arable land in the forest-steppe is up to 80%. The southern part of the East European Plain (except the southeast) is occupied by forb-feather grass steppes on ordinary chernozems, which are replaced to the south by dry fescue-feather grass steppes on chestnut soils. Most of the Caspian Lowland is dominated by wormwood-feather grass semi-deserts on light chestnut and brown desert-steppe soils and wormwood-saltwort deserts on brown desert-steppe soils in combination with solonetzes and solonchaks.

Ecological situation and specially protected natural areas . The East European Plain has been mastered and significantly changed by man. Natural-anthropogenic complexes dominate in many natural zones, especially in the landscapes of steppe, forest-steppe, mixed and broad-leaved forests. The territory of the East European Plain is highly urbanized. The most densely populated areas (up to 100 people/km2) are zones of mixed and broad-leaved forests. Anthropogenic relief is typical: waste heaps (up to 50 m high), quarries, etc. A particularly tense ecological situation in major cities and industrial centers (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Cherepovets, Lipetsk, Rostov-on-Don, etc.). Many rivers in the central and southern parts are heavily polluted.

Numerous nature reserves have been created to study and protect typical and rare natural landscapes, National parks and preservers. In the European part of Russia there were (2005) over 80 nature reserves and national parks, including more than 20 biosphere reserves(Voronezh, Prioksko-Terrasny, Central Forest, etc.). Among the oldest reserves: Belovezhskaya Pushcha, Askania Nova and Astrakhan Reserve. Among the largest - Vodlozersky national park(486.9 thousand km 2) and the Nenets Reserve (313.4 thousand km 2). Plots of indigenous taiga "Virgin forests of Komi" and Belovezhskaya Pushcha are on the World Heritage List.

Lit. : Spiridonov AI Geomorphological zoning of the East European Plain // Geosciences. M., 1969. T. 8; Plains of the European part of the USSR / Edited by Yu. A. Meshcheryakov, A. A. Aseev. M., 1974; Milkov F. N., Gvozdetsky N. A. physical geography USSR. General review. European part of the USSR. Caucasus. 5th ed. M., 1986; Isachenko A. G. Ecological geography of the North-West of Russia. SPb., 1995. Part 1; East European forests: history in the Holocene and the present: In 2 books. M., 2004.

A. N. Makkaveev, M. N. Petrushina.

East European (aka Russian) has the second largest area in the world, second only to the Amazonian lowland. It is classified as a low plain. From the north, the area is washed by the Barents and White Seas, in the south - by the Azov, Caspian and Black. In the west and southwest, the plain is adjacent to the mountains Central Europe(Carpathians, Sudetes, etc.), in the northwest - with the Scandinavian mountains, in the east - with the Urals and Mugodzhary, and in the southeast - with the Crimean mountains and the Caucasus.

The length of the East European Plain from west to east is approximately 2500 km, from north to south - about 2750 km, the area is 5.5 million km². The average height is 170 m, the maximum was recorded in the Khibiny (Mount Yudychvumchorr) on the Kola Peninsula - 1191 m, the minimum height was noted on the coast of the Caspian Sea, it has a minus value of -27 m. The following countries are completely or partially located on the territory of the plain: Belarus, Kazakhstan , Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Estonia.

The Russian Plain almost completely coincides with the East European Platform, which explains its relief with a predominance of planes. This geographical location is characterized by very rare manifestations of volcanic activity.

A similar relief was formed due to tectonic movements and faults. Platform deposits on this plain lie almost horizontally, but in some places they exceed 20 km. Elevations in this area are quite rare and are mainly ridges (Donetsk, Timan, etc.), in these areas the folded foundation protrudes to the surface.

Hydrographic characteristics of the East European Plain

In terms of hydrography, the East European Plain can be divided into two parts. Most of the waters of the plain have access to the ocean. The western and southern rivers belong to the Atlantic Ocean basin, and the northern ones belong to the Arctic Ocean. Of the northern rivers on the Russian Plain are: Mezen, Onega, Pechora and Northern Dvina. Western and southern water flows flow into the Baltic Sea (Vistula, Western Dvina, Neva, Neman, etc.), as well as into the Black (Dnieper, Dniester and Southern Bug) and Azov (Don).

Climatic characteristics of the East European Plain

The East European Plain is dominated by a temperate continental climate. Summer average recorded temperatures range from 12 (near Barents Sea) up to 25 degrees (near the Caspian lowland). The highest winter average temperatures are observed in the west, where in winter about -

NATURAL ZONES OF RUSSIA

EAST EUROPEAN (RUSSIAN) PLAIN

See photos of the nature of the East European Plain: Curonian Spit, Moscow Region, Kerzhensky Reserve and the Middle Volga in the Nature of the World section of our website.

The East European (Russian) Plain is one of the largest plains in the world in terms of area. Among all the plains of our Motherland, only it goes to two oceans. Russia is located in the central and eastern parts of the plain. It extends from the coast of the Baltic Sea to Ural mountains, from the Barents and White Seas - to the Azov and Caspian.

The East European Plain has the highest rural population density, large cities and many small towns and urban-type settlements, and a variety of natural resources. The plain has long been mastered by man.

The substantiation of its definition as a physical-geographical country are the following features: 1) an elevated stratal plain was formed on the plate of the ancient East European platform; 2) Atlantic-continental, predominantly temperate and insufficiently humid climate, formed largely under the influence of the Atlantic and Arctic oceans; 3) clearly expressed natural areas, whose structure was greatly influenced by the flat relief and neighboring territories - Central Europe, Northern and central Asia. This led to the interpenetration of European and Asian species of plants and animals, as well as to a deviation from the latitudinal position of natural zones in the east to the north.

Relief and geological structure

The East European Uplifted Plain consists of uplands with heights of 200-300 m above sea level and lowlands along which large rivers flow. The average height of the plain is 170 m, and the highest - 479 m - on Bugulma-Belebeev Upland in the Ural part. Maximum mark Timan Ridge somewhat smaller (471 m).

According to the features of the orographic pattern within the East European Plain, three bands are clearly distinguished: central, northern and southern. A strip of alternating large uplands and lowlands passes through the central part of the plain: Central Russian, Volga, Bugulma-Belebeevskaya uplands and Common Syrt divided Oka-Don lowland and the Low Trans-Volga region, along which the Don and Volga rivers flow, carrying their waters to the south.

To the north of this strip, low plains predominate, on the surface of which smaller hills are scattered here and there in garlands and singly. From west to east-northeast stretch here, replacing each other, Smolensk-Moscow, Valdai Uplands and Northern Ridges. The watersheds between the Arctic, Atlantic and internal (endorheic Aral-Caspian) basins mainly pass through them. From Severnye Uvaly the territory goes down to the White and Barents Seas. This part of the Russian Plain A.A. Borzov called the northern slope. Large rivers flow along it - Onega, Northern Dvina, Pechora with numerous high-water tributaries.

The southern part of the East European Plain is occupied by lowlands, of which only the Caspian is located on the territory of Russia.

Rice. 25. Geological profiles across the Russian Plain

The East European Plain has a typical platform relief, which is predetermined by the tectonic features of the platform: the heterogeneity of its structure (the presence of deep faults, ring structures, aulacogens, anteclises, syneclises, and other smaller structures) with unequal manifestations of recent tectonic movements.

Almost all large uplands and lowlands are plains of tectonic origin, while a significant part is inherited from the structure of the crystalline basement. In the process of a long and complex path of development, they were formed as unified in the morphostructural, orographic and genetic terms of the territory.

At the base of the East European Plain lie Russian stove with a Precambrian crystalline basement and in the south the northern edge Scythian plate with Paleozoic folded basement. The boundary between the plates in the relief is not expressed. On the uneven surface of the Precambrian basement of the Russian Plate, there are strata of Precambrian (Vendian, in some places Riphean) and Phanerozoic sedimentary rocks with slightly disturbed occurrence. Their thickness is not the same and is due to the unevenness of the basement topography (Fig. 25), which determines the main geostructures of the plate. These include syneclises - areas of deep occurrence of the foundation (Moscow, Pechora, Caspian, Glazov), anteclises - areas of shallow basement (Voronezh, Volga-Ural), aulacogenes - deep tectonic ditches, on the site of which syneclises subsequently arose (Krestsovsky, Soligalichsky, Moscow, etc.), ledges of the Baikal basement - Timan.

The Moscow syneclise is one of the oldest and most complex internal structures of the Russian plate with a deep crystalline basement. It is based on the Central Russian and Moscow aulacogenes filled with thick Riphean strata, above which the sedimentary cover of the Vendian and Phanerozoic (from Cambrian to Cretaceous) occurs. In the Neogene-Quaternary time, it experienced uneven uplifts and is expressed in the relief by rather large uplands - Valdai, Smolensk-Moscow and lowlands - Upper Volga, North Dvinskaya.

The Pechora syneclise is located wedge-shaped in the northeast of the Russian Plate, between the Timan Ridge and the Urals. Its uneven block foundation is lowered to various depths - up to 5000-6000 m in the east. The syneclise is filled with a thick layer of Paleozoic rocks overlain by Meso-Cenozoic deposits. In its northeastern part is the Usinsky (Bolshezemelsky) vault.

In the center of the Russian Plate there are two large anteclises - Voronezh and Volga-Ural, separated Pachelma aulacogen. The Voronezh anteclise slopes gently to the north into the Moscow syneclise. The surface of its basement is covered with thin deposits of the Ordovician, Devonian and Carboniferous. Rocks of the Carboniferous, Cretaceous and Paleogene occur on the southern steep slope. The Volga-Ural anteclise consists of large uplifts (arches) and depressions (aulacogens), on the slopes of which flexures are located. The thickness of the sedimentary cover here is at least 800 m within the highest arches (Tokmovsky).

The Caspian marginal syneclise is a vast area of deep (up to 18-20 km) subsidence of the crystalline basement and belongs to the structures of ancient origin, almost on all sides of the syneclise is limited by flexures and faults and has an angular outline. From the west, it is framed by the Ergeninskaya and Volgograd flexures, from the north - flexures of General Syrt. In places they are complicated by young faults. In the Neogene-Quaternary, further subsidence (up to 500 m) and accumulation of a thick layer of marine and continental deposits took place. These processes are combined with fluctuations in the level of the Caspian Sea.

The southern part of the East European Plain is located on the Scythian epi-Hercynian plate, lying between the southern edge of the Russian plate and the Alpine folded structures of the Caucasus.

The tectonic movements of the Urals and the Caucasus led to some disturbance of the sedimentary deposits of the plates. This is expressed in the form of dome-shaped uplifts, significant along the shafts ( Oksko-Tsniksky, Zhigulevsky, Vyatsky etc.), individual flexural bends of layers, salt domes, which are clearly visible in the modern relief. Ancient and young deep faults, as well as ring structures, determined the block structure of the plates, the direction of river valleys, and the activity of neotectonic movements. The predominant direction of the faults is northwestern.

A brief description of the tectonics of the East European Plain and a comparison of the tectonic map with the hypsometric and neotectonic ones allows us to conclude that the modern relief, which has undergone a long and complex history, is in most cases inherited and dependent on the nature of the ancient structure and manifestations of neotectonic movements.

Neotectonic movements on the East European Plain manifested themselves with different intensity and direction: in most of the territory they are expressed by weak and moderate uplifts, low mobility, and the Caspian and Pechora lowlands experience weak subsidence (Fig. 6).

The development of the morphostructure of the north-west of the plain is associated with the movements of the marginal part of the Baltic Shield and the Moscow syneclise; therefore, there are developed monoclinal (sloping) stratified plains, expressed in orography in the form of uplands (Valdai, Smolensk-Moscow, Belorussian, Northern Uvaly, etc.), and stratal plains, occupying a lower position (Upper Volga, Meshcherskaya). The central part of the Russian Plain was affected by intense uplifts of the Voronezh and Volga-Ural anteclises, as well as subsidence of neighboring aulacogenes and troughs. These processes contributed to the formation layer-tiered, stepped hills(Central Russian and Volga) and reservoir Oka-Don plains. The eastern part developed in connection with the movements of the Urals and the edge of the Russian Plate, therefore, a mosaic of morphostructures is observed here. Developed in the north and south accumulative lowlands marginal syneclise plates (Pechora and Caspian). Between them alternate layered-stage elevations(Bugulma-Belebeevskaya, General Syrt), monoclinal-reservoir uplands (Verkhnekamsk) and intraplatform folded Timan ridge.

In the Quaternary, the cooling of the climate in the northern hemisphere contributed to the spread of ice sheets. Glaciers had a significant impact on the formation of relief, Quaternary deposits, permafrost, as well as on the change in natural zones - their position, floristic composition, fauna and migration of plants and animals within the East European Plain.

Three glaciations are distinguished on the East European Plain: the Okskoe, the Dnieper with the Moscow stage, and the Valdai. Glaciers and fluvioglacial waters have created two types of plains - moraine and outwash. In a wide periglacial (preglacial) zone, permafrost processes dominated for a long time. The relief was especially intensively affected by snowfields during the period of reduction of glaciation.

Moraine of the most ancient glaciation - Oksky- was studied on the Oka, 80 km south of Kaluga. The lower, strongly washed Oka moraine with Karelian crystalline boulders is separated from the overlying Dnieper moraine by typical interglacial deposits. In a number of other sections to the north of this section, under the Dnieper moraine, the Oka moraine was also found.

Obviously, the moraine relief that arose during the Oka Ice Age has not survived to our time, since it was first washed away by the waters of the Dnieper (Middle Pleistocene) glacier, and then it was blocked by its bottom moraine.

Southern limit of maximum distribution Dnieper coverslip glaciation crossed the Central Russian Upland in the Tula region, then descended along the Don valley - to the mouth of the Khopra and Medveditsa, crossed the Volga Upland, then the Volga near the mouth of the Sura River, then went to the upper reaches of the Vyatka and Kama and crossed the Urals in the region of 60 ° N. In the basin of the Upper Volga (in Chukhloma and Galich), as well as in the basin of the Upper Dnieper, the upper moraine lies above the Dnieper moraine, which is attributed to the Moscow stage of the Dnieper glaciation *.

before the last Valdai glaciation in the interglacial epoch, the vegetation of the middle zone of the East European Plain had a more thermophilic composition than the modern one. This indicates the complete disappearance of its glaciers in the north. In the interglacial epoch, peat bogs with brazenia flora were deposited in lake basins that arose in the depressions of the moraine relief.

In the north of the East European Plain, a boreal ingression arose in this era, the level of which was 70–80 m higher than the present-day sea level. The sea penetrated along the valleys of the rivers of the Northern Dvina, Mezen, Pechora, creating wide branching bays. Then came the Valdai glaciation. The edge of the Valdai ice sheet was located 60 km north of Minsk and went to the northeast, reaching Nyandoma.

Changes occurred in the climate of the more southern regions due to glaciation. At that time, in the more southern regions of the East European Plain, the remnants of seasonal snow cover and snowfields contributed to the intensive development of nivation, solifluction, and the formation of asymmetric slopes near erosional landforms (ravines, gullies, etc.).

Thus, if ice existed within the limits of the Valdai glaciation, then in the periglacial zone, a nival relief and deposits (non-rock loams) formed. The extra-glacial, southern parts of the plain are covered with thick strata of loess and loess-like loams, synchronous with ice ages. At that time, in connection with the humidification of the climate, which caused glaciation, and also, possibly, with neotectonic movements, marine transgressions occurred in the basin of the Caspian Sea.

The length of the plain from north to south is more than 2.5 thousand kilometers, and from west to east - 1 thousand kilometers. Almost the entire length of the East European Plain is dominated by a gently sloping plain. Most of the major cities of the country are concentrated within the territory of the East European Plain. It was here that many centuries ago the Russian state was formed, which later became the largest country in the world in terms of its territory. It also contains a large part natural resources Russia.

The East European Plain almost completely coincides with the East European Platform. This circumstance explains its flat relief, as well as the absence of significant natural phenomena associated with movement ( , ). Small hilly areas within the East European Plain resulted from faults and other complex tectonic processes. The height of some hills and plateaus reaches 600-1000 meters. In ancient times, the shield of the East European Platform was in the center of glaciation, as evidenced by some landforms.

The East European Plain. satellite view

On the territory of the Russian Plain, platform deposits occur almost horizontally, making up lowlands and uplands that form the surface topography. Where the folded foundation protrudes to the surface, elevations and ridges are formed (for example, the Timan ridge). On average, the height of the Russian Plain is about 170 meters above sea level. The lowest areas are on the Caspian coast (its level is about 30 meters below the level).

Glaciation left its mark on the formation of the relief of the East European Plain. This effect was most pronounced in the northern part of the plain. As a result of the passage of the glacier through this territory, a multitude of (, Pskov, Beloe and others) arose. These are the consequences of one of the most recent glaciers. In the southern, southeastern and eastern parts, which were subjected to glaciation in an earlier period, their consequences have been smoothed out by processes. As a result of this, a number of uplands (Smolensk-Moscow, Borisoglebskaya, Danilevskaya and others) and lacustrine-glacial lowlands (Caspian, Pechora) were formed.

To the south, there is a zone of uplands and lowlands, elongated in the meridional direction. Among the hills, one can note the Azov, Central Russian, Volga. Here they also alternate with plains: Meshcherskaya, Oka-Donskaya, Ulyanovsk and others.

Further south are the coastal lowlands, which in ancient times were partially submerged under sea level. The plain relief here was partially corrected by water erosion and other processes, as a result of which the Black Sea and Caspian lowlands were formed.

As a result of the passage of the glacier through the territory of the East European Plain, valleys formed, tectonic ones expanded, and even some rocks were polished. Another example of glacier impact is winding deep peninsulas. With the retreat of the glacier, not only lakes were formed, but concave sandy lowlands also arose. This happened as a result of the deposition of a large amount of sandy material. Thus, over the course of many millennia, the many-sided relief of the East European Plain was formed.