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Shagan (lake)

Coordinates: 49°56′7″N 79°0′30″E / 49.93528°N 79.00833°E / 49.93528; 79.00833
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Lake Chagan
Location of Lake Chagan in Kazakhstan.
Location of Lake Chagan in Kazakhstan.
Lake Chagan
Location of Lake Chagan in Kazakhstan.
Location of Lake Chagan in Kazakhstan.
Lake Chagan
Coordinates49°56′7″N 79°0′30″E / 49.93528°N 79.00833°E / 49.93528; 79.00833
Basin countriesKazakhstan
Water volume10,000,000 m3 (8,100 acre⋅ft)[1]

Lake Chagan (Kazakh: Шаған, Shaǵan), or Lake Balapan, is a lake in Kazakhstan created by the Chagan nuclear test on January 15, 1965, which was conducted as part of the Soviet Union's Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy program. A 140 kiloton device was placed in a 178-metre-deep (584 ft) hole in the dry bed of the Chagan River. The blast created a crater 400 m (1,300 ft) across and 100 m (330 ft) deep with a lip height of 20 to 38 m (66 to 125 ft); it is often referred to as "Atomic Lake".

The lake's water comes from the Chagan River, a tributary of the Irtysh River. The crater lake's volume is approximately 10 million m3 (350 million cu ft).[1] To the south, the rim of the crater holds back the waters of a second reservoir.

Media

In Netflix's documentary series Dark Tourist (season 1 episode 4, "The Stans"), David Farrier visits and swims in Lake Chagan during his tour of Kazakhstan.

See also

References

  • "On the Soviet program for peaceful uses of nuclear weapons" (PDF). Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. September 1, 2000. Archived from the original (pdf) on 2016-12-23.
  • "On the Soviet nuclear program". Nuclear Weapon Archive.
  1. ^ a b Ayunov, D. E.; et al. (July 2017). "Present thermal regime of Lake Atomic (Semipalatinsk test site)". Russian Geology and Geophysics. 58 (7): 864–867. doi:10.1016/j.rgg.2017.06.009.

External links