Putorana Plateau

Lore & Background

The Putorana Plateau is a high-lying massif crossed by mountain ranges at the northwestern edge of the Central Siberian Plateau, located east of the Yenisei River valley. Its appearance is dominated by extensive basalt formations from the Siberian Traps, with numerous subranges including the Keta Range, Lontokoisky Kamen, Kharayelakh Range, and Lama Range. The highest peak is Mount Kamen, which also stands as the highest point of the entire Central Siberian Plateau. The plateau hosts Talnikovy Waterfall, reputedly one of the tallest waterfalls in Asia. Its range spans between 67° and 70° N of latitude, bordered by the Anabar Plateau to the southwest, the Syverma and Tunguska plateaus to the north, and the North Siberian Lowland to the south. The habitat features a harsh subarctic, sharply continental climate above the Arctic Circle, with long, severely cold winters and short, cool summers; higher elevations transition to tundra climate. Spring, summer, and autumn occur only in June, July, and August, while winter temperatures can be extreme. Precipitation falls mainly as rain in summer, with relatively sparse winter snow cover. Some lake valleys, such as Lake Lama, enjoy a milder microclimate due to shelter from northern winds. The plateau contains over 25,000 lakes, including large ones like Lake Dyupkun and Lake Lama, which form whole ecosystems and together represent the second-largest freshwater store in Russia by capacity after Lake Baikal. Russia’s geographical center, Lake Vivi, lies on the plateau’s southern limit. Defining characteristics include some of the world’s largest known nickel deposits, along with iron ores, silicates, and copper ores. The Putorana Nature Reserve protects the largest herd of wild reindeer and snow sheep, and was inscribed as a World Heritage site for its complete set of subarctic and arctic ecosystems, including pristine taiga, forest-tundra, tundra, and arctic desert systems, as well as untouched cold-water lake and river systems.

Reader's Guide

The plateau’s ecology is shaped by its harsh subarctic, sharply continental climate, with long, severely cold winters and short, cool summers. Higher elevations transition into a tundra climate, while certain lake valleys, such as that of Lake Lama, benefit from a milder microclimate due to sheltering mountain ranges. The plateau’s more than 25,000 lakes, including large systems like Lake Dyupkun and Lake Lama, form whole ecosystems spanning many tens of kilometers and together constitute Russia’s second-largest store of fresh water by capacity after Lake Baikal. This pristine environment supports the world’s largest herd of wild reindeer, as well as snow sheep, for which the Putorana Nature Reserve was established in 1988. The reserve, covering a substantial area with a buffer zone, was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 2010 for preserving a complete set of subarctic and arctic ecosystems—pristine taiga, forest-tundra, tundra, and arctic desert systems—alongside untouched cold-water lake and river systems. The plateau’s significance extends to its geology: it is composed mainly of basalt from the Siberian Traps and contains some of the world’s largest nickel deposits, alongside iron ores, copper, coal, and other minerals. Its remote location, near the restricted city of Norilsk, and its role as the highest point of the Central Siberian Plateau, with Mount Kamen as its summit, underscore its importance as a unique natural and geological reference within the region.

Did You Know?

• The Putorana Plateau contains some of the largest known nickel deposits in the world.
• The plateau sits within the Siberian Traps, a large igneous province formed by a massive eruption 250 million years ago that coincided with the Permian–Triassic extinction event.

Position Within the Siberian Plateau System

The Putorana Plateau is one of six named plateaus that together form the Central Siberian Plateau, alongside the Anabar, Lena, Lena-Angara, Tunguska, and Vilyuy Plateaus. This central plateau is itself one of three major landform zones that structure the entire North Asian region, the others being the West Siberian Plain to the west and the Verhoyansk-Chukotka collision zone to the east. The plateau also belongs to the broader Angara Shield complex, which encompasses the Taymyr Peninsula, the East and North Siberian coastal lowlands, and the Central Yakutian Lowland. All of this sits within a region spanning roughly 13.1 million square kilometres, making it the largest subregion of Asia by area and accounting for nearly 29 percent of the continent's total land. Its borders stretch from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Central and East Asian lands in the south, from Eastern Europe in the west to the Pacific and North America in the east.

Tectonic Heritage and the Siberian Traps

Beneath the Putorana Plateau lies a geological story stretching back hundreds of millions of years. The plateau rests on the Eurasian Plate, which dominates the topography of nearly all of North Asia, with only the far eastern reaches sitting on the North American, Amurian, and Okhotsk Plates. The central portion of this vast region is identified as a large igneous province known as the Siberian Traps, the product of a massive volcanic eruption roughly 250 million years ago. That event coincided with the Permian-Triassic extinction event, a pivotal moment in Earth's biological history. The Putorana Plateau, as a component of this central plateau zone, sits within the broader tectonic landscape shaped by that ancient upheaval. The geomorphology of North Asia as a whole remains imperfectly understood, even though its deposits and mountain ranges are well catalogued. Additionally, the Eurasian Plate itself has pivoted to compensate for new ocean floor created in the Siberian basin, a tectonic process that has influenced the positioning of the landmasses over deep geological time.

Arctic Exposure and Open Terrain

Because the Putorana Plateau sits within a landscape that lacks the kind of continuous mountain barriers found in many other parts of the world, it is fully exposed to the unimpeded flow of cold Arctic air. In North Asia, there are no major mountain chains to block polar air currents from sweeping southward across the plains of Siberia and Turkestan. This means the plateau, as part of the Central Siberian Plateau, experiences the direct influence of Arctic Ocean air masses that can travel unobstructed from the northern coast all the way across the vast interior. The region's sheer scale amplifies this effect: spanning approximately 13.1 million square kilometres, North Asia represents 8.8 percent of all land on Earth. The plateau's position within this enormous expanse of plains and plateaus means that weather systems originating over the Arctic can reach it with minimal attenuation. This open, barrier-free topography is a defining characteristic of the plateau's environment, distinguishing it from more sheltered highland regions elsewhere on the continent and contributing to the climatic conditions that have shaped both its ecology and its sparse human settlement patterns over millennia.

Human Presence in a Vast, Sparse Landscape

The Putorana Plateau exists within a region whose human story is defined less by density than by depth of time. Hominins first set foot in North Asia roughly 100,000 years ago during the Late Pleistocene, and modern humans with West Eurasian origins are confirmed to have arrived by about 45,000 years ago. The broader region was home to peoples from numerous language families, including the Ainu, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Mongolic, Nivkh, Tungusic, Turkic, Uralic, Yeniseian, Yukaghir, and Eskaleut groups. During the first millennium CE, the Göktürks held sway over southern Siberia, while the early second millennium saw the Mongol Empire and its successor states extend their rule across the region. The Khanate of Sibir stood as one of the last independent Turkic states before Russia conquered it in the sixteenth century, initiating a wave of European emigration that reshaped the demographic landscape. Today, over 85 percent of North Asia's roughly 37 million inhabitants are of European descent, while Indigenous peoples account for only about 5 percent, making the region the least populated subregion of Asia at just 0.74 percent of the continent's total population.

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