Hello Peter and List,

I think you talking about Aral sea which is loosing its water and slowly
disappearing. What about Caspian sea (it's will be more correct to named
it "lake" - largest in the world by the way) , I can say that Caspian's
water level changed every year and raise up to 2.5 meters for the last
20 years.

Very interesting place: by origin Caspian fauna contains a five
different faunistical groups of animals:
native caspian group-513 species or 43.8% of C.s. fauna:
arctic group. - 14 sp. or 1.2% (Caspian seal for example):
Mediterranean group, Freshwater group (228 sp) and Seawater group.
There is a lot of endemic fishes and crustaceans.

Malacological fauna included 178 species (74 species of Gastropods and
28 sp.of Bivalves are
endemics). But for sure it is a medium and  small sized creatures.
Oh yes, there is a three species of Zebra mussel (Dreissenidae)

Best regards,
Konstantin Kopylov
Houston,TX

PS: sorry for my terrible English.

Peter Egerton wrote:

   Patty,

  According to an article I read a while ago (National Geographic? or
was it on the Web?), the
  Caspian sea is an ecological disaster zone right now. The reason you
  saw no towns and villages beside it, and it looks so desolate, is that
it has
  been drying up and shrinking drastically over the last decades...the
once
  thriving villages on its shores are now nowhere near the new
shoreline.
  It would be interesting to view  this from an airplane as you did.

  Peter


  At 11:04 AM 10/06/2003 +1000, you wrote:

    Dear All,

    Following a sad family occasion three weeks ago, I found myself in a
Boeing
    747 flying about 10km up in the air over a completely cloudless
central
    Asian continent. As we left the snowy mountains of Afghanistan
behind, and
    the little villages of Georgia, we flew over the Caspian Sea. I
found
    myself wondering, peering out of the window, are there any shells in
this
    utterly desolate place? On the shores of this inland sea, I did not
spot a
    single village, on the water, I did not see a single boat
(admittedly, it
    must have been about 5am..). The shores and the water looked so
lifeless it
    seemed like the ocean equivalent of a desert.

    Has anyone ever seen any of these shores close up, or know anything
about
    them? Are there any shells in the Caspian Sea?

    just wondering

    Patty


    Dr. Patty Jansen