Geomorphology of the Tsetseg Nuur basin, Mongolian Altai – lake development, fluvial sedimentation and aeolian transport in a semi-arid environment

The landform ensemble of the Tsetseg Nuur Basin in Western Mongolia provides an archive for periods of different geomorphologic processes induced by changing climate conditions during the Holocene and late Pleistocene times. The geomorphologic map of Tsetseg Nuur basin in the Mongolian Altai illustrates the spatial relation and interaction between different types of sedimentation in semi-arid regions of Central Asia. The map is an instrument to visualize the geomorphologic settings, providing valuable information to distinguish periods of geomorphologic processes and to analyze the landscape evolution. This enables the creation of a relative morphostratigraphy of periods with different hydrological environments, mainly marked by the stages of lake level evolution in an interior drainage basin. The relative chronology calculated from the map receives an absolute chronostratigraphy through radiometric dating from selected sections investigated during field-work.