Lop Nor

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Related to Lop Nor: Dunhuang

Lop Nur

Lop Nur (lôp nûr), salt basin, SE Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China, in the Tarim River basin. Since 1964, Lop Nur has been used by the China for its nuclear test explosions. Once a large salt lake (as mapped by ancient Chinese geographers), it is now largely dried up, with marshes and small, shifting lakes receiving the channels of the Tarim river. The region was explored by N. M. Przhevalsky and Sven Hedin; archaeological sites at the ancient margins of the lake have yielded mummies of Caucasian inhabitants. In 1928, at the time of the last expedition, the lake covered c.1,200 sq mi (3,100 sq km). The name sometimes appears as Lop Nor and Lo-pu po.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Lop Nor

a lake without an outlet in western China, in the eastern part of the Tarim Basin. It lies at an elevation of about 780 m.

The location dimensions, outline, and degree of salinity of Lop Nor change sharply, owing primarily to changes in discharges and shifts in the channels of the lower courses of the Tarim and Konche Darya rivers that feed Lop Nor. In the ninth and tenth centuries the area of the lake reached 14,000 sq km. The growth of irrigated lands in the Tarim Basin has caused a decrease in the river’s flow. The maximum area of modern Lop Nor is more than 3,000 sq km; the length is more than 100 km; and the average depth is about 1 m. Lop Nor is ringed by swampy salt bottoms and marshes; in low-water periods it breaks up into several separate stretches of water or dries up and becomes covered with a layer of salt. The lake is icebound from November to March, and most of it freezes down to the bottom. In certain years the channel of the Tarim River shifts so that the Tarim does not reach Lop Nor but turns south and, joining the Cherchen River, fills Lake Kara Kashum (“Przheval’skii’s Lop Nor,” 100–150 km southwest of modern Lop Nor), which is covered with vast numbers of reeds. Kara Kashum was first studied by the Russian traveler N. M. Przheval’skii in 1876 when the water level was high. Study of Lop Nor helped resolve the puzzle of the wandering of the rivers and lakes of Central Asia.

REFERENCES

Murzaev, E. M. Priroda Sin’tsziana i formirovanie pustyn’ Tsentral’noi Azii. Moscow, 1966.
Kuznetsov, N. T. Vody Tsentral’noi Azii. Moscow, 1968.

N. T. KUZNETSOV

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References in periodicals archive ?

Though the uplift was less than two inches, it corresponds to known surface locations above past tests within the Lop Nor test site.

At Lop Nor, however, the water table is only about three meters below the surface, and the heated groundwater plume took four years to reach that high, lifting the ground above the detonation site slightly -- but enough to be detected through InSAR images.

Satellite Imagery Detects Thermal 'Uplift' Signal of Underground Nuclear Tests

I took off from the air base in the late morning and headed toward the target, ground zero at Lop Nor, 300 kilometers away.

I had three choices: I could abandon the aircraft by parachute and let it crash in a remote area of the vast desert that surrounded the Lop Nor test site; I could crash-land the aircraft to assure that it was set down in a place where it would harm no one; or I could try to bring the aircraft back to base.

Eagle of the Yi people: the story of PLAAF Pilot Yang Guoxiang

In Tropen these phenomena were light and colors; in Die Wuste Lop Nor they are sand and dunes.

Die Wuste Lop Nor

They are from west to east, Tarim Basin (mainly including Taklimakan Desert and Lop Nor area), Alashan Plateau (including: Badain Jaran Desert, Tengger Desert ,Ulan Buh Desert and Hexi Corridor), Ordos Plateau (including: Mu Us Sandy Land and northern Loess Plateau), southeastern Inner Mogolia Plateau (including: Houshan Area, Otindag Sandy Land, and Horqin Sandy Land) and North China Plain (to the south of Beijing).

LOP NOR: Scientific results of a journey in central Asia (1899-1902).

Wind Erosion in Arid and Semiarid China: an Overview

With the fall of the Soviet Union, a dreadful light is beginning to fall on places like Kazakstan and the consequences of Soviet indifference to fall-out - and similar news may yet come from the Lop Nor region of Chinese testing.

Dr Stragelove, I Presume

June 8: China carries out nuclear explosion at the Lop Nor test site in Xinjiang.

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It's from Lop Nor. Lop Nor is the Chinese test site," he explained.

Policing the peace: how nations will monitor a nuclear test ban

China has also riled Washington by continuing to test nuclear weapons at its Lop Nor test site despite U.S.