Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal
Olchon Island
Coordinates	Template:Coor at d
Lake type	Continental rift lake
Primary sources	Selenga, Chikoy, Khiloh, Uda, Barguzin, Upper Angara River
Primary outflows	Angara
Catchment area	560,000 km² (347,968 mi²)
Basin countries	Russia
Max length	636 km (395 mi)
Max width	80 km (50 mi)
Surface area	31,494 km² (12,159 mi²)
Average depth	758 m (2,487 ft)
Max depth	1637 m (5369 ft)
Water volume	23,600 km³ (5,521 mi³)
Shore length1	2,100 km (1,305 mi)
Surface elevation	456 m (1,496 ft)
Islands	22 (Olkhon)
Settlements	Irkutsk
1 Shore length is an imprecise measure which may not be standardized for this article.

Lake Baikal (Russian: Байка́л, pronounced ['ozʲɪrə bʌj'kɑl]; Buryat and Mongol: Dalai-Nor) lies in Southern Siberia in Russia between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and Buryatia to the southeast near the city of Irkutsk. The origin of the name Baikal comes from Baigal or Байгал which is translated from the Mongolian language as "nature." It is also known as the Blue Eye of Siberia.

Lake Baikal is the deepest and oldest lake in the world. It is the largest freshwater lake on the earth by volume. It contains over one fifth of the world's liquid fresh surface water and more than 90% of Russia's liquid fresh surface water. It is a World Heritage Site. Olkhon, by far the largest island in Lake Baikal, is the second largest lake-bound island in the world (the largest being Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron).

Geography and hydrography

Very little was known about Lake Baikal until the Trans-Siberian railway was built between 1896 and 1902. The scenic loop encircling Lake Baikal needed 200 bridges and 33 tunnels. As this railway was being built, a large hydrographical expedition headed by F.K. Drizhenko produced the first detailed atlas of the contours of Baikal's depths. The atlas demonstrated that Lake Baikal has as much water as all of North America's Great Lakes combined—23,600 km³, about one fifth of the total fresh water on the earth. However, in surface area, it is exceeded by the much shallower Great Lakes Superior, Huron and Michigan, as well as by the relatively shallow Lake Victoria in East Africa. Known as the "Galápagos of Russia," its age and isolation have produced some of the world's richest and most unusual freshwater faunas, which is of exceptional value to evolutionary science.

Lake Baikal is in a rift valley, a gorge where the crust of the earth is pulling apart. At 636 kilometers long and 80 km wide, Lake Baikal has the largest surface area of any freshwater lake in Asia (31,494 km²) and is the deepest lake in the world (1637 metres, previously measured at 1620 metres). The bottom of the lake is 1285 metres below sea level, but below this lies some 7 km (4 miles) of sediment, placing the rift floor some 8–9 km (more than 5 miles) below the surface: the deepest continental rift on Earth. In geological terms, the rift is young and active—it widens about 2 centimeters per year. The fault zone is also seismically active: there are hot springs in the area and notable earthquakes every few years. It drains into the Angara tributary of the Yenisei.

The Yenisei River basin, Lake Baikal, and the settlements of Dikson, Dudinka, Turukhansk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk

Its age is estimated at 25–30 million years, making it one of the most ancient lakes in geological history. It is unique among large, high-latitude lakes in that its sediments have not been scoured by overriding continental ice sheets. US and Russian studies of core sediment in the 1990s provide a detailed record of climatic variation over the past 250,000 years. Longer and deeper sediment cores are expected in the near future.

The lake is completely surrounded by mountains. the Baikal Mountains on the north shore and taiga, is technically protected as a national park and contains 22 small islands, the largest, Olkhon (also spelled 'Olchon'), being 72km long. The lake is fed by some 300 inflowing rivers, the six main ones being Selenga, the source of some of Baikal's pollution, Chikoy, Khiloh, Uda, Barguzin and Upper Angara River, and is drained through a single outlet, the Angara River.

Despite its great depth, the lake's waters are well-mixed and well-oxygenated throughout the water column compared to the stratification that occurs in such bodies of water as Lake Tanganyika and the Black Sea.

Despite muted protests, a wood pulp and cellulose processing plant was built at the south end of the lake (at Baikalsk). The plant still pours industrial effluent into Baikal's waters. The overall impacts of watershed pollution on Baikal and similar watersheds are studied annually by the Tahoe-Baikal Institute, an exchange program between U.S., Russian, and Mongolian scientists and university graduate students started in 1990.

Wildlife

Omul Fish at the Listvyanka market

The extent of biodiversity present in Lake Baikal is equaled by few other lakes. Lake Baikal hosts 1085 species of plants and 1550 species and varieties of animals. Over 80% of animals are endemic. The Baikal Seal (Phoca sibirica), the only mammal living in the lake, is found throughout the whole area of the lake but nowhere else.

Of note is an endemic subspecies of the omul fish (Coregonus autumnalis migratorius). It is fished, smoked, and sold in markets around the lake. For many travelers on the Trans-Siberian railway, purchasing smoked omul is one of the highlights on the long journey.

Bear and deer are observable and hunted along Baikal coasts.

Environmental concerns

Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill

The lake in the summer, as seen from Bolshiye Koty on the southwest shore

Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill (BPPM) was constructed in 1966 directly on the shore line. The BPPM bleaches its paper with chlorine and discharges the waste into Baikal. Despite numerous protests, the BPPM is still in production. Environmental activists are now in a struggle to make the pollution less harmful rather than end BPPM's production since a plant shutdown would be problematic due to local socioeconomic issues.

Planned East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline

Russian state company Transneft was planning to build a trunk pipeline that would have come within 800m (0.5mi) of the lake shore in a zone of substantial seismic activity. Environmental activists in Russia, Greenpeace, Baikal pipeline opposition and local citizens were strongly opposed to these plans due to the possibility of an accidental oil spill that might cause significant damage to the environment. According to the Transneft's president, numerous meetings with ordinary citizens were held in towns along the route, especially in Irkutsk.[1] Finally Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered the company to consider an alternative route to the north, to avoid such ecological risks. Notwithstanding the spectacular increase in costs, Transneft has since decided to move the pipeline away from Lake Baikal so that it will not pass through any federal or republic natural reserves.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Kozhov, M. M. Lake Baikal and Its Life. Monographiae biologicae, v. 11. The Hague: W. Junk, 1963. OCLC 660805
• Matthiessen, Peter, and Boyd Norton. Baikal: Sacred Sea of Siberia. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1992. ISBN 0871565846
• Thomson, Peter. Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN 0195170512

External links

• USGS survey fact sheet on Lake Baikal. Retrieved July 21, 2008.
• World lakes database entry for Lake Baikal. Retrieved July 21, 2008.
• Plants of the Lake Baikal West Coast in English and Russian (download a pdf-photoalbum and descriptions). Retrieved July 21, 2008.
• Save Baikal Greenpeace site. Retrieved July 21, 2008.
• Huge map of Lake Baikal region. Retrieved July 21, 2008.

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