Lake Baikal, Siberia

ighty million years ago, massive tectonic convulsions caused the Earth's crust to collapse in what is now southern Siberia. The yawning chasm which resulted, called a graben, was initially dry, but about twenty five million years ago the climate became wetter, and over the ensuing millennia the rivers in its huge watershed poured into it and created the worlds deepest lake.

The sheer scale of Lake Baikal is difficult to grasp. It is not just deeper than Lake Superior, its nearest rival, but four times deeper, at some 5300 feet or over a mile.
It is 395 miles long, roughly 30 miles wide, and its capacity is nearly 6000 cubic miles - greater than all of the Great Lakes combined and accounting for more than one fifth of the total volume of fresh water on the entire planet. What is more, with over 300 rivers flowing into it and only one, the Angara, flowing out, and with continuing geological movements, it is still growing.
In 1862, a massive earthquake caused a 77 square mile area of land, larger than all of the channel islands combined, to be sheared off and engulfed by the lake. Eventually, in several million more years, the fissure that is Baikal will extend right to the Arctic sea.

Because of its age and isolation, Baikal's ecology is unique. About one third of its flora and two thirds of its fauna are found nowhere else. Possibly the most unusual of these is the golomyanka. This eight inch long fish is totally transparent and scaleless, and about a third of its bodyweight is made up of oil. It lives at a depth of about 1500 feet, but at night swims to the surface to feed on plankton. In the morning, though, it must flee back to the icy depths before its oils turn to liquid, killing it.

If you are on a ship heading east through the Panama canal, which ocean will you emerge into?

Return to Minerva Home Page | Back to The Arts | Continue with Tour