Ai-Petri - a top and a mountain area of 300 km2 , one of the dining sets ( also called yaylami ), extending along the southern coast and up the main mountain range . Ai-Petri array stretches from east to west 25t km . The distance between its southern edge and the northern foothills more 13ti km .Conditional eastern boundary runs along the meridian of Mount Doom , separating the array of nearby Yalta plateau. To the west of Ai-Petri ends deep saddle Baidar gate.
However, most tourists do not remember the array as a whole , and one of its vertices with a palisade of exotic stone pillars , known as teeth.This peak is far to the south ledge nominated by the array is actually the Ai- Petri, which gave its name all over the plateau and became a symbol of the South Coast .
The highest point of the entire body - Mount Doom with elevation 1346 meters above sea level, slightly less (1,320 meters) mountain quail ( Beneden -Kir ).The very same mountain Aj-Petri is much lower - its height in 1231 meters above sea level.
Throughout the mountains looking south toward the sea, menacing rock walls : where a strictly vertical , where the step , but everywhere difficult to reach.Rare mountain passes through which people in ancient times and has paved the path of cart roads and walkways are now serving with the Southern coast of the plateau.
The northern slopes of the array is not so steep, they completely cover and deciduous forests.
To the north, a small advanced arrays Boyko and Sedam - Kai. Share their river Kokkozka .Many other rivers and streams running down from the Ai- Petri. On its northern slopes of the tributaries flowing Kokkozki : Auzun Uzen and Sarah Uzen , with Western - River : Baga, UrkustaUzundzha , of which Black River is born - the most abounding in the Crimea . In the upper left-hand one of the unnamed tributaries of the tract is Uzundzha Karadag forest.From the top of the array on a clear day are clearly visible settlements Gaspra , ОреандаФоросКореизСимеизГолубой Bay City Alupka ... In the west, in Baydarskaya valley , lie the village of Eagle , At the foot of the northern slopes of lush gardens, interlocking with the forest, one can hardly make out the village of Polyana,СоколиноеМногоречьеСчастливое ... And just to the east, where the Ai-Petri is bordered by other mountain ranges - Yalta , no villages ,Southern slope of the river - a short and dry in summer - there are violent and dangerous in high water . Hundreds of springs feed these rivers and among the largest in the Crimea - a source of Skelsky .
In the south of the coast to the mountains rise whitewashed houses a beauty of Yalta.
The southern cliffs of Ai- Petri massif and its northern gentle slopes are very picturesque , but there is no lovelier panorama of the Southern coast , opening at the top. It is hard to find krymchanina , who at least once in their lives have not seen the sun rise on the Ai- Petri.Really, for this one moment when the fireball of the sun seemed to pop up out of the dark blue depths of the sea , stands up to this height .
Mountain Crimea , as we see it today, was formed over a relatively short period of geological time - approximately 1.5 - 2 million years.
more or less reliably known geological history of the Crimean Mountains , including the Ai-Petri, from the late Triassic period (about 200ot million years ago).At the time of the Crimean peninsula of what is now covered with water of the ancient Tethys Ocean , which existed for much of the history of the world ( until Neogene period ). In the east-west direction through the ocean stretched the southern outskirts of the Eurasian continent , the area of contemporary Mediterranean Sea and the extreme north- west Africa.
Over the past 200 million years the land area on which the Ai-Petri , repeatedly extracted from beneath the sea level, and then it is actively destroying the exogenous forces , and then sank below sea level .Depth of dive was different , depending on her on the bottom and deposited silt or sand , transforming later in the clay and sandstone, or limestone silt that turn into limestone.Sometimes , with a significant uplift to be close to land and shallow waters of the basin , the land actively eroded and eroded down to the pool huge amounts of coarse gravel . Cemented marine sediments , they are transformed into conglomerates .
150 - 160 million years ago in the vicinity of the Ai-Petri were active volcanoes , the remains can be seen near towns and Foros Melas .
In numerous uplift and subsidence crust marine sediments , transformed under the weight of overlying sediments into rock layers , often wrinkled , cracked and moved.Naturally, the older the rock , the more they are deployed ( violated) . Plastic rock - clay with layers of sandstone - a whimsical bent folds , more durable - limestone , conglomerates - torn into separate blocks. Some blocks of the mighty forces of the Earth's interior traveled a great distance.In the Crimea , in particular on the Ai- Petri such transfers reach a kilometer in the vertical direction and a few kilometers - in the horizontal direction.
The oldest rocks that form the Ai-Petri, can be seen in the river valley in the cliffs Kokkozki over the road that leads from Bakhchisarai through Falcon to Yalta.These cut river valley folds are composed of rhythmically interbedded rocks Tauria series - sandstone , siltstone , mudstone, painted in different colors. Above the rock formations are Tauria Middle Jurassic rocks (because they are younger).These are the same overcrowded clay interbedded with sandstones , the rocks that resemble a layer cake , geologists called flysch . In appearance flysch formations Tauria differs little from the Middle Jurassic flysch , however, they are deployed relatively weaker and more curved in gentle folds .
Tauria Breed series and make up the base of the Middle Jurassic of the Ai- Petri array. Above them lie limestone. The line of contact passes at different elevations , but in general does not exceed 500 - 600 meters.Only in one place ( the tract of Besh- Tekno ) flysch rocks pushed underground by the height of 1000 - 1100 meters on the surface of the plateau.
in the Crimean Mountains for nearly a half million years, and on the surface and deep within the mountains imperceptibly flow processes active karstovaniya , leading to the formation of different size and shape of craters , hollows and caves.Ai- Petri array are three karst regions: Western Ai-Petri karst area between the pass gate and the top Baidar Merdven -Kayasy ; Central, which occupies the middle part of the array between the peaks and Kayasy Merdven - At- Bash , East , which lies between the peaks of Al - bash , and Doom.The most intensive karst Central Ai-Petri area . It found 218 underground caves and sinkholes over 1330 .Overall, the Ai-Petri 302 underground caverns (caves , wells, mines) , including 12 natural monuments of local importance : Skelsky , and Danilcha - cob .
If the apical part of the plateau dominated by karst , below , at the foot of the slopes - landslides , rock- mud dam and processes. Landslides are formed in all the mountains, especially where this contributes to geological conditions .In Crimea, the conditions for the formation of landslides favorable , so only on the slopes of the Coast recorded a landslide 452 , of which 112 are active.At the foot of the Ai-Petri is possible to see many large and small landslides , nine of them are basic : Malassky , plyazhChukurlarsky .
In addition to the loose material downhill slide and very large limestone blocks , broken away from the main mass of rocks - ottorzhentsy . Among the surrounding softer rock , they look picturesque rocks. By ottorzhentsam include mountain Mogabi at Yalta, in Alupka Phillips , The Cat in the Simeiz and many others.
Ai-Petri climate differs sharply contrast. The average air temperature at Ai-Petri 5.9 oC. In the mountains in the same month the average temperature can be very different . Ai- Petri in January it is 11.4 ° -20.4 ° C ... in February, 11.5 ° -26.5 ° C ... , and in August 27.1 ° -2.3 ° C ... . The warmest month on jajlah - July , at least - in August .The average July temperature is 15.6 C, but the maximum is much higher - it reaches 32oS . The coldest month - February , the average temperature is -3.8 ° C it .
40 % of precipitation on the Ai- Petri plateau falls as rain , 60% - in the form of snow .In an average year in the fall of Ai-Petri 1052 mm of rainfall (in Yalta only 635) , and only in January, 160 mm. The snow cover lasts from mid December to March. Because of the thaw in the pale areas of the plateau snow melts completely at 50-70 % a few times during the cold period of time.
The duration of daylight on the Ai- Petri is great - 2325 hours.
and unwanted vagaries of nature , though here are a nuisance and a danger , but still - a phenomenon still short .
Ai- Petri Mountain Crossing , from south to north or vice versa , even non-expert eye for a certain regularity in the distribution of vegetation: forest slopes clothed , on a plateau dominated by meadow- steppe vegetation. Yayla affects broad expanses of open spaces with sparse clumps of trees and shrubs.Unlike other Crimean yayl Ai -Petry has natural woodland along the edge of the cliffs, karst plateau in the Central and erosion and karst valleys in the west, but most of the plateau is covered by meadow- steppe vegetation.
The vegetation in the mountains, a truly rich and diverse.On the southern slopes grows a beech forest with an admixture of pine . From a height of 1000 - 800 meters above sea level begins Crimean pine belt , which in the first tier is growing oak tree, while the second - with juniper prickly . Below 400 meters starting times of juniper shrub communities , oriental hornbeam , derzhidereva and many other shrubs with a mixture of oak.Here you can find tupolistnuyu pistachio , strawberry tree with a distinctive smooth reddish bark , a thin outer layer which changes annually , and with evergreen leaves , zheltotsvetny jasmine shrub species vyazelya , puzyrnik and much more. In the woods a lot of fruit trees and bushes.On the slopes of the Ai-Petri plateau and grow almost all common types of mountain ashes : an ordinary, large-fruited , Berek , Greek and others.
So what is the Ai-Petri ? It is unlikely that this question has an answer .
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