Issyk-Ata Deposit is located 78 km southeast of Bishkek in the middle part of the picturesque valley of the same name river at absolute elevations of about 1750-1800 m. Good roads lead from Tokmak and Kant through the village of Yurievka to the Issyk-Ata resort, providing all-weather and year-round access for the settlements of the Chui Valley to this resort.
The Issyk-Ata thermal springs are well-known and were apparently used for treatment since ancient times, as evidenced by a glacial boulder on which an image of Buddha is carved, dating back to the 10th century AD according to archaeologists. The first mention of Issyk-Ata in literature appears in A. I. Severtsov's work (1864), and the first scientific description of the local springs was made by Professor I. V. Mushketov from the St. Petersburg Mining Institute (1875), who also surveyed several other thermal water sources in the Tian Shan at that time. In the following years, this deposit attracted the attention of many specialists, but it was not until 1956 that the first drilling works were organized in the area of the long-established resort, which, after 20 years, resulted in the confirmation of thermal water reserves by the State Commission on Mineral Resources. However, the twists and turns of exploration did not hinder the significant development of the resort at this deposit, which has now become one of the most popular in the republic.
Despite the capture of a large flow of thermal waters by wells (over 25 l/s), thermal springs continue to emerge, including those with temperatures around 40°C (the maximum in the wells is 55°C). Regardless of their association with metamorphic or magmatic rocks, the thermal water has a sodium chloride-sulfate composition with a mineralization approaching 0.3 g/l; the silicon dioxide content in the water from the wells reaches 45 mg/l, which is slightly more than 15% of the weight of the dry residue and is relatively high for the thermal waters of Kyrgyzstan. In terms of fluoride content, the Issyk-Ata water does not stand out among the thermal waters of the republic — its concentration is 6-8 mg/l, and among the ore elements, lithium, molybdenum, copper, lead, and zinc have been found, but in amounts not significantly exceeding background concentrations.
In terms of mineralization and the ratio of macrocomponents, the Issyk-Ata thermal springs find many analogues in various countries of Europe, in Kamchatka, in Siberia, and across Kyrgyzstan. They belong to a numerous group of low-mineralized nitrogen thermal springs of the Kuldur type (named after the deposit and resort in the Khabarovsk region), which in turn gives its name to the group of Tian Shan thermal springs referred to as Issyk-Ata type.
The explored reserves of thermal waters in the Issyk-Ata deposit exceed the actual needs for thermal water of the resort based on this deposit by two times and have prospects for expansion during further geological exploration, so from the perspective of the hydromineral base, the prospects for the development of the resort are very favorable. It should also be noted that in the Issyk-Ata geological-structural position, about ten kilometers east of the resort in the valley of the Tuyuk River, which is largely similar to the Issyk-Ata valley, there are outflows of warm water of the Issyk-Ata type.
As noted multiple times by the well-known expert on mineral waters of Kyrgyzstan, N. I. Kataeva, manifestations of thermal, anomalously warm waters on the northern slope of the Kyrgyz Ridge are located approximately along the same latitude line within ten kilometers from its foot. This fact likely allows for the expectation of encountering thermal waters with relatively shallow wells drilled in the "thermal line," which further expands the prospects for utilizing thermal waters in the area.
