Strange black swirls.(google earth)

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum but this one seemed most appropritate looking through all of them.

So I was browsing Google Earth and I came across this in Russia. Does anyone know what it is? I'd love to know! Thank you.

I'lll be honest, at first I thought this was a photoshop job of some hair on a table or something. So I went to the coordinates on your screen. It is there and it appears to be water. It looks like a river basin or something. It is strange, all of the water on that part of the map shows up as black. Certainly is strange.

Yes, it's a river. Sometimes the colours the satellite images come out in have water looking black, so I'd say thats what that is. looks like it's meandering a lot as well, and in certain areas there seem to some oxbow lakes, as well as some meanders which are definitely getting towards being oxbow lakes.

[edit on 22-10-2007 by apex]