Canal-U

Band-e-Amir lakes phytoherms

After modern reefs and carbonate mangrove hurricane sedimentation, this movie deals with the continental carbonate sedimentation in the exceptional area of the Band-e-Amir Lakes, in Afghanistan. In this environment of high mountains and under distant karstic influences, a rock is  slowly elaborated by chlorophytes and cyanobacteria. Called travertine, it is able to stop torrents, creating lakes, and to build up, not only dams which are challenges for human engineering, but also gigantic accumulations of continental origin calcareous rocks in a glacis located down stream each dam. With the strongly seismic Hindu Kuch and Himalaya summits, the geological context explains the speed of the destruction of these continental carbonate bioherms or phytoherms.