The etymology of the name of the lake has several versions. According to one of them, the word is Turkic and means “rich lake” - Bai-Kul. According to another, the name was given to the reservoir by the Mongols, and it means either “rich fire” (Baigal), or “big sea” (Baigal Dalai). And the Chinese called it the "North Sea" (Bei-Hai).
The basin of Lake Baikal as an orographic unit is a complex formation of the earth's crust. It began to form 25-30 million years ago, and recent studies show that the process of lake formation continues. According to geologists, Baikal is the embryo of the future ocean. Its shores “scatter”, and after some time (several million years) a new ocean will be in place of the lake. But this is a matter of the distant future. What is Baikal interesting for us today?
First of all, by its geographical characteristics. The maximum depth of Baikal is 1637 meters. This is the largest indicator among all the lakes in the world. Running in second place, the African lake of Tanganyika is one hundred and sixty-seven meters behind.
The average depth of Baikal is also very great - seven hundred and thirty meters! The area of the lake (more than 31 thousand sq. Km.) Is approximately equal to the area of a small European country (Belgium or Denmark).
The depth of Baikal is also due to the huge number of large and small rivers, rivers and streams (336!) That flow into the lake. Only the Angara flows out of it.
Baikal is also the world's largest reservoir of clean fresh water, slightly larger in volume than all five great American lakes (Upper, Huron, Erie, Michigan and Ontario)! In numbers, it will be more than 23, 600 cubic kilometers. The great depth of Baikal and the impressive area of the water mirror became the reason that the locals christened this lake lying in the depths of Eurasia by the sea. Here, as in the real sea, storms occur, and even tides, although of small magnitude.
Why is the water of Baikal so transparent that at a depth of forty (!) Meters the bottom is visible? The channels of the rivers feeding the lake are found in sparingly soluble crystalline rocks, as are the bed of the lake itself. Therefore, the mineralization of Baikal is minimal and amounts to 120 milligrams per liter.
Considering that the depth of Baikal is 1637 meters, and the coastline is 456 meters above the sea level, it turns out that the bottom of the lake is the deepest continental depression in the world.
In August 2009, the Mir-1 deep-sea vehicle dived at the deepest point in Lake Baikal, not far from Olkhon Island. The dive lasted more than an hour. For five and a half hours, a video was taken at the bottom of the lake and samples of bottom rocks and water were taken. During the descent, several new organisms were discovered and a place was discovered where the lake was polluted with oil.
For ten years, nine kilometers from the coast at a depth of 1370 meters, an autonomous deep-sea station has been operating, which has equipment for monitoring the electromagnetic field of the Earth. Scientists expect that the depth of Lake Baikal will affect the accuracy of the research, because the equipment is installed almost a kilometer below sea level. And on the shore for processing incoming data, a station for collecting, processing and transmitting information is installed.
