The urgency of the safety of the components of the natural environment of Central Kazakhstan is due, firstly, to the long development of solid minerals and, in connection with this, the huge expenditure of energy and water resources, and secondly, to the use of obsolete mining technologies. The complex of works on the extraction of solid minerals leads to a change in the entire range of environmental conditions in the mining areas and adjacent areas, which is due to the interconnectedness of all natural components among themselves. The article deals with the processes, associated with work in the mining industry, the beginning of which was laid in the first half of the ХХ century. A prolonged mechanical intervention in the surface, subsurface structures of the earth‘s crust led to the development of a number of dangerous geodynamic processes, that directly and indirectly degrade the ecological state of the surrounding area.

Many disturbances and changes in nature are caused by a number of human activities, such as mining engineering, town planning, and also by the influences of the activities connected to these indusries. Central Kazakhstan is one of the regions of the Republic experiencing enormous pollution pressure caused by giant industry as the coal and metallurgical, mining and chemical and machine construction. The article reviews main industrial induced factors that define the spatial distribution of negative processes in semi arid climate of Central Kazakhstan where the intensive mining works have been conducted since 1940s and have led to a change of relief formation, groundwater and soil contamination. The damaged areas occupy vast territories, significantly reducing the habitable space for the population of Central Kazakhstan. The research examined two environmental components to assess and improve the ecological situation at the mining area: (a) land and water as economical component and (b) relief as main natural component.

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The use of materials for remote sensing of the Earth made it possible to identify a new type of crustal structures and features of their expression in relief. These are ring structures that complicate the structure of the studied structures of a linear type. As a result of the study of the morphology, geological and tectonic structure of ring structures, it was established that they represent formations of various origins: pluton-volcanic, cosmogenic, and anthropogenic. Cosmogenic structures of different ages and differ in various degrees of transformation. The relief of the identified cosmogenic structures within the limits of the Turan Plains, the Kazakh small hills and mountains of South-Eastern Kazakhstan is transformed by exogenous processes. The defining indicator features of cosmogenic structures include geomorphological, geological, structural tectonic, and also landscape. The degree of change in the initial cosmogenic relief depends on the time of formation, paleogeographic and modern physiographic conditions of the territories. Under the arid conditions of Kazakhstan’s epyhercynian platform, the main factor in the preservation of the “primary” morphology of meteorite craters is the lithologic stratigraphic complexes of the ring shaft. For the studied cosmogenic structures, in particular, the meteorite craters of Saryarka, a distinct geodynamic zoning of the development of exomorphogenesis processes is characteristic. The main exogenous processes include gravity-slope, surface washout, ravine and river erosion, processes of complex denudation and accumulation. The factors and processes of creating a modern crater relief morphology are established. These studies of cosmogenic ring structures of Kazakhstan have not only theoretical significance, revealing the role of cosmogenic processes of the formation of the Earth as a planet, but also have immediate practical importance. Meteorite craters are indicators of mineral deposits.