Karakul, Qarokul (Kyrgyz for "black lake", replacing the older Tajik name Siob; ; ; , ; ) is a diameter lake within a rather large impact crater. It is located in the Tajik National Park in the Pamir Mountains in Tajikistan. Impact crater Karakul lies within a circular depression interpreted as an impact crater with a rim diameter of . Some estimates give its age as relatively recent. Preliminarily, it was thought to be c. 25 Ma or less than 23 Ma. However, it may even be from the recent Pliocene (5.3 to 2.6 Ma). The Earth Impact Database (EID) also lists it as younger than 5 Ma. It is larger than the Eltanin impact (2.5 Ma), which has already been suggested as a contributor to the cooling and ice cap formation in the Northern Hemisphere during the late Pliocene. The Karakul impact structure was first identified around 1987 through studies of imagery taken from space. Lake description The lake/crater lies at an elevation of above mean sea level. A peninsula projecting from the south shore and an island off the north shore divide the lake into two basins: a smaller, relatively shallow eastern one, between deep, and a larger western one, deep. It is endorheic (lacking a drainage outlet) and the water is brackish. There is a small village with the same name on the eastern shore of the lake. The lake level was 35 m higher after the last ice age. Environment Although the lake lies within a national park, much of the surroundings are used as pasture. The lake, with its islands, marshes, wet meadows, peat bogs, and pebbly and sandy plains, has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA) because it supports significant numbers of the populations of various bird species, either as residents, or as breeding or passage migrants. These species include bar-headed geese, ruddy shelducks, common mergansers, saker falcons, Himalayan vultures, lesser sand plovers, brown-headed gulls, Tibetan sandgrouse, yellow-billed choughs, Himalayan rubythroats, white-winged redstarts, white-winged snowfinches, rufous-streaked accentors, brown accentors, black-headed mountain finches and Caucasian great rosefinches. The lake's islands are the main places where waterbirds rest and nest. The only fish in the lake are Nemacheilus. Events Higher than Lake Titicaca, Karakul hosted the Roof of the World Regatta from 2014 to 2017. This replaced the Alpine Bank Dillon Open, held on the Dillon Reservoir in Colorado, United States