Tuculana Sand Dunes

Of particular interest on the slopes of the Lena River valley are huge arrays of fluttering sands — sand dunes called tuculans. Translated from the Evenk language, “tukulan" means sands. The largest tukulan Saamys-Kumaga is located below the confluence of the Deering-Yuryakh stream. The sands reign here, forming a piece of a real desert among the green taiga. They are rightfully considered "exotic Yakut nature". Tukulans differ from real deserts in the abundance of deep-flowing lakes occupying the blowing basins, and vegetation, and the entire climatic situation. The formation of deserts is not always associated with a hot and dry climate. Sometimes they are found in the northern territories, where it is cold in winter and quite hot and humid in summer. Here is the kingdom of golden loose sand, but the sands are not devoid of life, as in the sultry deserts of the world. Slender green pines and individual shrubs are an integral part of the Tukulan landscape. Vegetation exists here due to the presence of permafrost: frozen rocks do not allow water to seep deep and this fertile water is enough for nutrition and plant growth. There is an assumption that the tukulans are sand deposits of the ancient Lena, which, perhaps tens of thousands of years ago, flowed west of its modern bed. According to other versions, they are formed either by sands spread by the wind from the foothills of the mountains from which glaciers descended about 20 thousand years ago, or due to the erosion of ancient sand strata that rose during vertical movements of the earth's crust. The study of tuculans continues. This is necessary not only for geologists, botanists, zoologists and physical geographers, but also for builders, as well as specialists in northern agriculture.