| Lake
Baikal, Respublika Buryatiya,
|
|
| Russia |
| Earth's Natural Wonders in
Asia |
| |
| Length of Lake
Baikal: 394 miles (635 km) |
| Width of lake:
30 miles (48 km) |
| Depth of lake:
5,380 feet (1,640 m) |
Lake Baikal sits in
Southern Siberia in Russia, located
between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest
and the Buryat Republic to the southeast,
near the city of Irkutsk. Also known
as the "Blue Eye of Siberia,"
it contains more water than all the
North American Great Lakes combined.
At 1,637 meters (5,371 ft), Lake Baikal
constitutes the deepest lake in the
world, and the largest freshwater
lake in the world by volume, holding
approximately 20 percent of the world's
total surface fresh water.
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Like Lake Tanganyika,
Lake Baikal formed in an ancient
rift valley and therefore has
a long, and crescent shape with
a surface area (31,500 km²)
less than half that of Lake Superior
or Lake Victoria. Baikal serves
as home to more than 1,700 species
of plants and animals, two thirds
found only in the lake zone. UNESCO
designated Lake Baikal a World
Heritage Site in 1996. At more
than 25 million years old, it
has been declared the oldest lake
in the world.[4] The successful
dive of Mir-1 and Mir-2 mini-submarines
to the deepest place in Baikal
on 29 July 2008, at over one mile,
has opened the prospect of new
discoveries of ancient lake life.
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Geography
and hydrography
The peninsula of Svyatoy Nos.While
known as the "North Sea"
in historical Chinese texts, Lake
Baikal had been located in the then
Xionu territory. Lake Baikal had been
out of the public eye until the Russian
government built the Trans-Siberian
railway between 1896 and 1902. The
scenic loop encircling Lake Baikal
needed 200 bridges and 33 tunnels.
As under construction, F.K. Drizhenko
headed a hydrogeographical expedition
that produced the first detailed atlas
of the contours of Baikal's depths.
The atlas demonstrated that Lake Baikal
has more water than all of North America's
Great Lakes combined—23,600
cubic kilometers (5,662.4 cu mi),
about one fifth of the total fresh
water on the earth. In surface area,
the much shallower Great Lakes Superior,
Huron and Michigan in North America,
as well as by the relatively shallow
Lake Victoria in East Africa exceeded
it. Known as the "Galápagos
of Russia," its age and isolation
have produced some of the world's
richest and most unusual freshwater
fauna of exceptional value to evolutionary
science.Lake Baikal lies in a rift
valley created by the Baikal Rift
Zone where the crust of the earth
pulls apart.
The Yenisei River basin,
Lake Baikal, and the settlements of
Dikson, Dudinka, Turukhansk, Krasnoyarsk,
Irkutsk.At 636 kilometers (395.2 mi)
long and 79 kilometers (49.1 mi) wide,
Lake Baikal has the largest surface
area of any freshwater lake in Asia
(31,494 km²), constituting the
deepest lake in the world (1,637 metres,
previously measured at 1,620 metres).
The bottom of the lake measures 1,285
metres below sea level, but below
that lies some 7 kilometers (4.3 mi)
of sediment, placing the rift floor
some 8–9 kilometers (more than
5 miles) below the surface: the deepest
continental rift on Earth. In geological
terms, the rift, young and active,
widens about two centimeters per year.
The fault zone experiences frequent
seismic activity. New hot springs
appear in the area and notable earthquakes
happen every few years. It drains
into the Angara tributary of the Yenisei.
Its age, estimated at
25–30 million years, makes it
one of the most ancient lakes in geological
history. Unique among large, high-latitude
lakes, its sediments have been unscoured
by overriding continental ice sheets.
U.S/ and Russian studies of core sediment
in the 1990s provide a detailed record
of climatic variation over the past
250,000 years. Geologists expect longer
and deeper sediment cores in the near
future. Lake Baikal has been confirmed
as the only fresh water lake with
direct and indirect evidence of gas
hydrates existing.
The lake is completely
surrounded by mountains, with the
Baikal Mountains on the north shore
and the taiga technically protected
as a national park. It contains 22
islands; the largest, Olkhon, measures
72 kilometers (44.7 mi) long. The
lake has as many as three hundred
and thirty inflowing rivers, the main
ones draining directly into Baikal
include the Selenga River, the Barguzin
River, the Upper Angara River, the
Turka River, the Sarma River and the
Snezhnaya River. The Angara River
serves as its single drainage outlet.
Despite its great depth, the lake's
waters have excellent oxygenation
throughout the water column compared
to the stratification that occurs
in such bodies of water as Lake Tanganyika
and the Black Sea.
Olkhon, the largest
island in Lake Baikal, constitutes
the fourth-largest lake-bound island
in the world.[2]
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One fifth of the world's water
is contained in a single lake,
Lake Baikal in Russia's southern
Siberia. The lake is relatively
small in suface area, ranking
ninth in the world. It is 394
miles long and 30 miles wide,
but it is extremely deep. It reaches
a depth of 5,380 feet and contains
about 5,500 cubic miles of water;
more than the total contents of
North America's Great Lakes.
The lake is also incredibly old.
It was formed about 20 million
years ago after a rift formed
in the earth's crust. Hot springs
on the lakebed indicate the area
is still geologically active.
Annually the region's seismic
stations register up to 200 earthquake
tremors |
| |
In the winter the lake
is frozen solid and local people drive
out across the frozen landscape to
fish through holes they drill in the
ice. In places where the ice was formed
in calm conditions it is transparent
and the fish can be seen swimming
below. Although the ice is strong,
daily temperature flucuations cause
intricate patterns of cracks that
form gaping crevasses as much as three
feet wide. In summer the ice splinters
into tiny slithers, creating prisms
of light that dance across the water.
After the ice melts, the water can
be so clear you can see down 130 feet
or more.
Many animals living here are unique
to Bailal, such as the Baikal seals
and golomyanka fish that gives birth
to live young. The fish can endure
an amazing amount of pressure, at
a drpth of 3,280 to 4,593 feet it
can move quite freely, whereas at
such a depth even a cannon cannot
shoot because of the enormous pressure.[3]
Scientists are still
debating the lake's origin. Some are
trying to prove that it emerged as
a result of tectonic processes of
orogenesis, while others consider
it as having been formed as a result
of the earth's crust gradually subsiding.
So far nobody has been proved right.
The Baikal area is
a veritable treasure trove of mineral
resources. Sables thrive in the region's
taiga; valuable fur animals live in
the surrounding mountains and valleys;
and birds and fish abound in the forests
and rivers of the area. The nearby
Dauro-Mongolian steppes are very fertile.
There are hot springs in the vicinity
of Lake Baikal, the water of which
is of excellent quality. The lake
acts as a powerful generator and biofilter
producing this water.
| "Blue eye of
Siberia," Lake Baikal in
eastern Siberia. This crescent-shaped
lake is more than 900 miles from
the nearest ocean (the Pacific)
and is about 400 miles long and
50 miles wide. Rimmed by mountains,
and nearly surrounded by forests,
it's one of the most beautiful
lake settings in the world. While
it's the 7th largest lake on the
globe in regards to surface area,
in terms of volume of water, Lake
Baikal has no peers. Its greatest
depth is 5,022 feet - the world's
deepest lake. |
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Interestingly, Lake
Baikal is gradually getting bigger.
It rests in the biggest continental
trough or rift in the Earth's surface,
and this rift has been widening at
a rate of about 3/4 inch (2 cm) per
year. Lake Baikal is so astonishing
big that if were drained, and if all
of the world's rivers were diverted
so as to empty into the huge trough,
it would take a full year to refill
it! Not only does Lake Baikal contains
1/5 of all of the world's supply of
unfrozen, fresh water, but it could
satisfy the drinking water needs of
everyone on Earth for almost 50 years.
Though more than 330
rivers and streams feed Lake Baikal,
only the Angara River is an outlet.
The Angara empties into the Arctic
Ocean, more than 1,500 miles away.
Lake Baikal is estimated to be nearly
25 millions years old, making it possibly
the world's oldest lakes. Additionally,
of the 1,800 or so fauna and flora
that are found in and around the lake,
about 2/3 of them are indigenous -
a higher percentage anywhere, except
for the Antarctic lakes. While most
of the lake's unique fauna are microscopic
invertebrates, the Baikal seal is
one of the lake's most popular indigenous
mammals.
Unfortunately, Lake
Bailkal's once pristine waters are
no longer that way, but even though
the water is now tainted by pollution,
it's still remarkably clear. Tiny
crustaceans act to purify the lakes's
waters so that it's possible to see
a bright object on the lake bottom
in 500 feet of water! However, while
the lake water is still clear now,
a real concern is that the buffering
effect of the lake's well-oxygenated
waters may be overwhelmed by toxins
and industrial waste in the near-future.
Until timber began to
be widely harvested from Lake Baikal's
slopes in the early 1900s, it's said
that the lake's water was clean enough
to be consumed without filtering.
As large tracks of forests were removed
with the growth of lumber and pulp
industries, tons of silt and sediment
washed into the lake. Since the 1960s,
industrial pollution has been the
biggest problem. More than 100 factories
can be found close by the lake. Perhaps
the worst polluters are factories
that use chlorine to turn wood pulp
into cellulose, which is used in the
manufacturing of cardboard packaging.
This chlorine slowly but surely makes
its way into the lake. As a result
of this chemical pollution, not only
have some fish species declined but
so have smaller life forms that are
crucial in keeping the lake healthy.
Pollution from the largest cites near
the lake, Irkutsk to the southwest
and Ulan Ulde to the southeast, are
also causing problems. In addition,
another source of pollution comes
from the burning of coal in several
power plants adjacent to the lake.
Since Lake Baikal contains such a
large volume of water, and only a
single river outlet, the contaminants
that are present now will be there
for years to come.
A number of initiatives
have been proposed over the years
and a few laws have been passed to
prevent blatant pollution practices.
However, as of now, many of these
laws have little bite. They may impede
polluters but they can't stop them.
The people who live near Lake Baikal,
of course, don't want to see their
beautiful lake threatened by pollution.
A few groups are doing what they can
to promote awareness of the lake's
fragility and are active in efforts
to remove litter and reduce industrial
effluent. But, because the Russian
economy has been in dire straits since
the break up of the Soviet Union a
decade ago, the government's emphasis
has been on trying to fix the economy,
and environmental issues receive relatively
little backing, financial or otherwise.
Closing down a lake-side factory in
violation of pollution ordinances,
and thus eliminating perhaps thousands
of jobs, will just further cripple
the region's economy. It'll be sometime
before things get better. Even the
few government and scientific institutes
that in the past have been responsible
for monitoring this impressive lake's
health, now have few resources to
do so. [4]
You tube video-Lake
Baikal
