Ustyurt Plateau

Mangystau

Kazakhstan

October 19, 2018

The Tuzbair Chalk Cliffs of Mangystau extend for twenty-four kilometers as they face the Great Salt Basin.

Nature sculpts and gouges an infinite variety of chalk-limestone cliffs and crevices, carvings and statuary that gleam with intensity and grandeur. 

The salt in the basin crackles beneath my feet.

In case you are wondering about chalk:

Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is an ionic salt called calcium carbonate or CaCO₃. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite shells (coccoliths) shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores.

Want more geology?

https://geology.com/rocks/chalk.shtml

From the Mangystau Ministry of Tourism:

https://mangystau.gov.kz/en/mesta/view/