Editing Karakum Desert (section)

==Geography==
The desert covers roughly seventy percent of [[Turkmenistan]],<ref>{{Cite web|title=Karakum Desert {{!}} Map & Facts {{!}} Britannica|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Karakum-Desert|access-date=2022-01-28|website=www.britannica.com|language=en}}</ref> a long east–west swath. It sits east of the [[Caspian Sea]] which has a steep east bank. It adjoins, to the north, the long delta feeding the [[South Aral Sea]] further north, another [[endorheic lake]], about {{Convert|58|m|ft|abbr=on|sp=us}} higher than the Caspian Sea. The delta is that of the [[Amu Dar'ya|Amu Darya]] river to the northeast, demarcating the long border with the [[Kyzyl Kum|Kyzylkum Desert]] of [[Uzbekistan]]. The desert is divided into three regions, the elevated northern Trans-Unguz Karakum, the low-lying Central Karakum, and the southeastern Karakum, home to a chain of [[Salt marsh|salt marshes]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Karakum Desert {{!}} Map & Facts {{!}} Britannica|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Karakum-Desert|access-date=2022-01-28|website=www.britannica.com|language=en}}</ref> Since the early 1980s, the relatively small desert extension, the [[Aralkum]], has come to occupy most of the former [[seabed]] of the [[Aral Sea]], about {{Convert|15,440|sqmi|km2|abbr=on|sp=us}}. The sea has fluctuated over millennia, but its majority loss during the [[Soviet Union]]'s existence coincided with great irrigation projects.  The [[North Aral Sea]] was partly restored, but the South Aral Sea ebbed to a small-size stasis at its river mouth,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://enrin.grida.no/aral/aralsea/english/arsea/arsea.htm |title=Aral Sea|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090316062917/http://enrin.grida.no/aral/aralsea/english/arsea/arsea.htm |archive-date=16 March 2009|publisher=International Fund on the Aral Sea|website=State of Environment of the Aral Sea Basin: Regional Report of the Central Asian States|year=2000}}</ref> which itself dried up by 2014,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/AralSea|title=World of Change: Shrinking Aral Sea|website=The Earth Observatory|publisher=National Aeronautics and Space Administration|access-date=3 November 2022}}</ref> leaving only fragments of the former sea behind, such as [[Barsakelmes Lake]].[[File:Karakum Desert.png|thumb|A map of [[Central Asia]]. The Karakum Desert is highlighted at the bottom.]] 

Within the north-west edge of the desert used to be a river. In the late [[Pleistocene]], the Amu Darya used to flow beyond the Aral Basin to [[Sarykamysh Lake]] then to the Caspian Sea. Sedimentation and floods during a pluvial period led to overflow to the [[Zeravshan (river)|Zeravshan River]] valley to the east. The two flows merged and formed or expanded Horezm Lake, which had been formed by the earlier Khvalinian period, and as it overflowed northwards it carved its link with the Aral Sea along the Akcha Dar'ya population corridor of that low, gentle valley (a remote community of Western Uzbekistan and north-east Turkmenistan).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Razakov |first1=RM |title=The Aral Sea Basin |date=1996 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-642-64736-9 |url=https://www.springer.com/us/book/9783642647369 |access-date=27 March 2019}}</ref>