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!!!Kara-Kul

[{Image src='120ti.jpg' width='540' height='540' caption='Photo courtesy of NASA. ' popup='false' alt='Kara-Kul' class='image_left'}]
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Near the center of this scene is the mountain lake Kara-Kul, located in eastern Tajikistan, high in the Pamir Mountain Range near the Afghan border. The 25-km (16-mi) diameter lake sits at an elevation of about 4,000 m (about 12,000 ft) above sea level. 

Kara-Kul was formed from a meteorite impact approximately 25 million years ago, leaving a crater with a rim diameter of 45 km (28 mi). Islands formed from the central uplift can be seen in the northern and southern parts of the lake. 

Interestingly, the Kara-Kul impact structure remained unidentified until it was discovered though studies of imagery taken from space.