Webcam Sevastopol - Road in Belbek Canyon
Belbek Canyon (Belbekskie or Albatskie Vorota) is a section of the narrowing of the valley of the Crimean Belbek River between the settlement of Kuybyshevo and the village of Tankovoye, where the river crosses the Inner Ridge of the Crimean Mountains. The length of the canyon - 5 km, the height of the sides of 65-70 m, width in the narrowest place - 300 m. The canyon was formed through a process of water erosion that occurred in the deep crevice in the Cretaceous limestones and marls of the kuesta of the Inner Ridge of the Crimean Mountains. Forms of weathering on the slopes of Belbek Canyon.
Belbek Canyon has an important scientific value. Its natural geological section serves to study the stratigraphy of the Upper Cretaceous and Lower Paleogene of the Crimea. Upper Cretaceous and Paleogene rocks are exposed by the river. Downstream, the deposits of the Turonian (white limestones and marls) and Danish (gray limestones and sandstones with a characteristic fauna) Upper Cretaceous stages are well traced, then come out the limestones of the Monetsky, marls and sandstones of the Tannet Paleocene stages, as well as clays of the Lower Eocene. The entire section is characterized by a large amount of fossil fauna. Belbek Canyon from the side of Kuybyshevo village.
On the slopes of the canyon grow rock oak and downy oak, hornbeam, dogwood, rose hips, derrick. On one of the south-western slopes (left bank of the Belbek) is a relict yew grove of 2000 trees, which the decision of the Crimean Regional Executive Committee in 1980, declared a local conservation area. In 1975 by the USSR Council of Ministers Belbek Canyon was declared a nature monument of national importance.
