According to one of the versions, the Karakum Desert “begins its lineage” from the ancient dried up Aral-Caspian Sea as part of the prehistoric Tethys Ocean, representing the seabed in the distant geological past. The second, river version, which many modern scientists follow after Academician V. A. Obruchev, says the Turan desert was built by the rivers that carried its debris from the southern mountain ranges, washed the soil, changing the course and forming a huge mass of sands. In any case, older marine sediments are buried under the river sands.

Depressions, sinkholes, soil structural discontinuities and karst voids can be found in this multi-layered sandy ocean. All these sights together can be called a unique landscape monument. For example, the Sarykamysh depression and drainless Archakay depression located below the ocean level have become a well-known natural phenomenon like the deep Darvaza gas crater. For wildlife lovers, an unexpected discovery will be a trip to another depression located northwest of the Zengibaba chink. It is filled with weakly brackish drainage water coming from the Shasenem agricultural massif through the Malyab bypass canal, forming a chain of large and small lakes 15 kilometres long joined by channels.