Belarusian Ridge Explained

The Belarusian Ridge is a line of terminal moraines, which is almost entirely in the northwest of Belarus. The feature is part of the East European Plain.

This ridge, consisting of low, rolling hills, runs for about 500 km in the direction from west-southwest to east-northeast, from the area of the Brest region, which is close to the border of Poland to the Russian town of Smolensk.[1]

The ridge is a limit of the last advance of the ice sheet,[2] which defines its geological constitution: mostly moraine loams with added glacial and alluvial sediments.[1]

River valleys divide the ridge into sections, uplands.[2]

The ridge stretches approximately from west to east and separated two major lowlands: Polesie Lowland to the south and and to the north.[2]

Features within Belarus

The highest elevation of the ridge (and the whole Belarus) is Mount Dzyarzhynskaya, 365m.

Features elsewhere

The part of the within Poland is called Wzgórza Sokólskie, of area about 1,300sq.km.

A small patch in the north belongs to Lithuania

To the east it connects to the Smolensk–Moscow Upland, Russia via a narrow corridor called the between swampy areas of Dnieper and Dzwina river systems, of strategic military significance.[3]

References

53.8739°N 26.9858°W

Notes and References

  1. http://bse.sci-lib.com/article107101.html Белорусская гряда
  2. http://www.belarusguide.com/nature1/natgeo.html Physical Geography
  3. Jacek Bartosiak, The Potential War Map of Eastern Europe