EXPLORE Lena Pillars Nature Park with this slideshow, check the location map and get all the facts and information below.
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Location and Values: The Lena Pillars Nature Park is a geological site located in the Sakha Republic of eastern Siberia in the Russian Federation. The park protects a spectacular series of rock pillars along the banks of the Lena River, which have been created over the millennia through repeated frost-shattering of the rock under extreme climatic conditions. This is the world’s most notable ‘pillar landscape’ of its kind, and the Earth’s prime example of the ‘frozen ground’ karst phenomenon. The site also includes important fossils of early life, covering the entire period of the ‘Cambrian Explosion’ (around 540 million years ago), a pivotal period in the evolution of life on Earth when practically all modern animal phyla started to appear.
Conservation Status and Prospects. According to IUCN’s Conservation Outlook Assessment (2017) the conservation status of the Lena Pillars Nature Park is ‘good’. The IUCN report notes that protection of the park benefits from its remote location and lack of resident communities, facilitating an effective protection and management regime. Forest fires represent the biggest threat to the area, although this is unlikely to impact on the site’s outstanding geological values.
Links:
Google Earth
Official UNESCO Site Details
IUCN Conservation Outlook
UNEP-WCMC Site Description
Slideshow description
The slideshow ‘tells the story’ of Lena Pillars Nature Park with a portfolio of photos by Andrey Petrov. The Pillars are best seen by boat from the river, and the slideshow illustrates the diversity of these structures along the most accessible part of the river. The Pillars themselves occupy a very small part of the world heritage site, which encompasses an extensive landscape of conifer forests, protecting related land forms and all the natural processes that are necessary to maintain the area’s world heritage values.
Factfile
Website Category: Fossil Record; Earth Features
Area: 13,870 km2
Inscribed: 2012
Criteria:
- Fossil record (viii);
- Geological features (viii);
