Lake Baikal. The deepest lake on the planet. What is the largest freshwater lake in the world Fluctuation of water in a reservoir
And also anomalous creatures are born that cannot be found anywhere else on Earth.
Some lakes are the sites of catastrophic events in history, such as or, while others contain unique geological strata.
We present to our readers the 13 most amazing lakes of our planet.
Boiling Lake
Boiling Lake on the island of Dominica is the second largest in the world, although you probably wouldn't want to dive into its waters.
Along the shores, the water temperature rises to 80-90 degrees Celsius, while central part too hot to get close and take measurements. The lake is almost completely covered with clouds of steam, and its grayish water is constantly seething.
Laguna Colorado
The water of this eerie lake in Bolivia is blood red, and its surface is covered with strange islands of sodium tetraborate, the same substance that is found in many detergents.
The color of the lake is associated with colored bottom sediments and a large number red algae that grows rapidly in this place. People often walk in the waters of this lake, in sharp contrast
Plitvice Lakes
These amazing lakes in Croatia are truly unique, and the namesake national park represents one of the most beautiful places in the world.
It is actually a complex of 16 lakes, all interconnected by a series of waterfalls and caves. Each lake is separated from the others by thin natural dams of travertine - an unusual shape that is slowly formed from local lichens, algae and bacteria. Travertine dams are growing at a rate of 1 centimeter per year, making the lakes extremely vulnerable.
Lake Nyos
This lake in Cameroon is one of the few known exploding lakes in the world. Directly below it is a cavity with magma, which fills Nyos with carbon dioxide and turns its waters into carbonic acid.
Recently, in 1986, the lake produced a huge explosion that suffocated 1,700 people and 3,500 head of livestock from nearby villages. This was the largest case of asphyxia due to a natural phenomenon.
There is a danger that this could happen on one of the three exploding lakes in the world. In fact, it is Nyos that may be the most likely place for a repeat disaster, since the natural channel along which the lake flows is fragile and vulnerable to cracks.
Aral Sea
The Aral Sea, once one of the world's largest lakes, is now an almost completely dry desert. On its territory you can see the rusted skeletons of ships that once plied the expanses of this reservoir, emphasizing its scale.
Since 1960, the lake has steadily decreased in size, primarily as a result of irrigation projects of the former Soviet Union, which changed the courses of the rivers that fed the lake.
Today the area Aral Sea only 10 percent of previous sizes. The region's fisheries and ecosystems have been devastated in what has been described as one of the world's worst disasters. environmental disasters planets.
Peach Lake
Dismal Lake on the island of Trinidad is the world's largest natural source of bitumen. The lake covers an area of more than 40 hectares, its depth is up to 75 meters, and it is even inhabited by extraterrestrial, extremophile organisms.
Local residents claim that the waters of this lake have mystical properties. medicinal properties for everyone who bathes in it, although such claims have not been proven. Interestingly, bitumen obtained from Peach Lake was used to pave some New York City streets.
Lake Don Juan
The hypersaline lake, discovered in 1961 in Antarctica, is the saltiest body of water on the planet.
Its salt content is more than 40 percent, so high that Lake Don Juan never freezes, even though it lies near the icy south pole.
Dead Sea
The deepest hyperhaline lake in the world is too salty for living creatures to live in it, which is why the reservoir got its name.
The surface of the lake is 415 meters below sea level, making it the lowest on Earth. The salt levels in the Dead Sea make it very difficult to swim, but extremely pleasant to drift.
In the mid-20th century, in caves along Dead Sea, located in Israel, ancient biblical scrolls were discovered. They were preserved in part thanks to unique climate these places. The Dead Sea also borders the state of Jordan.
Taal Lake
Taal Lake, located in island state The Philippines deserves special attention, since in its center there is an island called Volcano.
Since there is also a small lake in the crater of Vulcan Island, this entire complex is known as largest lake in a world on an island, which in turn is also in a lake on an island. The tongue twister doesn't end there: there is also a small island in Vulcan Island Crater Lake called Vulcan Point. Got it?
Lake Balkhash
Lake Balkhash, located in Kazakhstan, is the 12th largest lake in the world, but this is not actually what makes it unique. This lake is surprising in that half of it consists of fresh water, while the other half is salt water.
Balkhash partly maintains this balance due to the fact that its two halves are connected by a narrow piece of land 3.5 kilometers wide and 6 meters deep.
There are fears that Balkhash could dry up like the Aral Sea, since the beds of many of the sources that feed it are currently being changed.
Tonle Sap
The unique Tonle Sap ecosystem in Cambodia is difficult to classify as a lake or a river.
During the dry season, the waters of the Tonle Sap flow into the Mekong River, but during the monsoon period the flow of water is so intense that it is literally carried back out of this river, resulting in the formation of the largest freshwater lake V Southeast Asia. It is especially different in that its course changes in the opposite direction twice a year.
Due to these unusual conditions, the region is a real treasury in plan, and it has been named a UNESCO biosphere.
Crater Lake
After large-scale eruption Mount Mazama in the center of the American state of Oregon 7,700 years ago there was a huge caldera about 600 meters deep into the mountain. Despite the complete absence of feeding sources, the crater of Mount Mazama gradually, over thousands of years, was filled with simply sediment.
Today it is the second deepest lake in North America, and its waters are nearly the clearest, cleanest, and least polluted in the entire world.
Lake Baikal
The huge body of water in Russia is truly unusual. This is the oldest and deepest lake in the world, in addition, it is the second largest on the planet and contains almost the purest water. By unknown means, it remained filled for 25 million years, and in given time The lake contains 20 percent of the entire Earth.
Two thirds of the 1,700 species that call Baikal home cannot be found anywhere else in the world. It is not surprising that in 1996 the region was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Thus, last year's results of German specialists were confirmed. As the director of the Hydrobiological Institute in the city of Ohrid, Susana Patcheva, emphasized, the age of the lake exceeds 1.2 million years, but this is not the final date, reports Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
It is believed that Lake Ohrid was formed a long time ago, even before the onset of the Ice Age. Surrounded by ridges mountain range Galicia, it is a kind of monument of relict, prehistoric nature.
The waters of Lake Prespa, going underground at the monastery of St. Nauma, through invisible underground channels, descend into the plain and spread over an area of 350 square kilometers, forming Lake Ohrid. In turn, the Black Drin River flowing from Lake Ohrid carries its waters into the Adriatic Sea.
Lake Ohrid is a witness to the geological past and a genuine museum of unique creations of nature. It can tell many secrets and tell about animals that lived on earth 30 million years ago.
The reservoir is located at an altitude of 695 meters above the sea, at its deepest point it reaches 288 meters.
In summer, Lake Ohrid resembles a spread velvet cover; the water warms up to +21 °C. A miraculous phenomenon here is that in winter the water here does not freeze and in bad weather the lake can even show its cruel temper and raise waves up to 5 meters from the ground.
The exceptionally transparent emerald water column, through which you can see to a depth of up to 20 meters, reveals to the eye not only the wonderful mosaic of the bottom, but also the life of many fish.
In the water you can see sponges clinging to the stones; Crayfish hide in the thick coastal sedge, and huge schools of small bleak swim near the shore, from whose scales the so-called Ohrid pearls are made.
The eels living in Lake Ohrid, as well as eels in general, are a long-standing mystery of science. They swim here from the depths of the Sargasso Sea as tiny fry, sink to the bottom and live there until they reach sexual maturity, which occurs after 25 years. And then, driven by instinct, they gather in huge flocks in late autumn and return to their ancestral home. There they lay eggs and die, and their offspring make the same mysterious journey several thousand kilometers long. Recently, hydroelectric dams built on the Drina have stood in this way. But eels have not disappeared from the lake - they are now transported to the sea in tanks.
On the last sunny days of autumn, countless flocks of birds cover the surface of the lake - wild ducks, geese, pelicans, swans, seagulls...
Since 1980, Lake Ohrid has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Lakes are natural bodies of water formed in depressions on land that store 67.4% of all fresh water on Earth. The sizes and depths of lakes can be very different, and some of them are significantly superior to many seas in these indicators.
This review presents ten most deep lakes in the world.
10th place: – lake tectonic origin, located in the south of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Its depth is 590 meters. Matano is the deepest lake in Indonesia. Lake Matano is an important source of fresh water in Indonesia, famous for its crystal clean waters, which are home to many rare species of plants, fish and crustaceans. On its banks there are deposits of nickel ore. The Patea River has its source in Matano, which, flowing through a waterfall, flows into Lake Mahalona.
9th place: – crater lake, which has a depth of 594 meters. Crater - deepest lake in the USA and the second deepest in North America. This lake is the main attraction of the same name national park, located in Oregon. Crater Lake was formed in a deep volcanic basin (caldera) more than 7 thousand years ago due to the destruction of the Mount Mazama volcano. Thanks to the melting snow, the water in the lake is particularly clean and blue. Crater Lake has an unusual attraction - a huge log called the "Old Man of the Lake", which has been floating in a vertical position in the reservoir for more than a century. In 2005, Crater Lake was featured on the Oregon commemorative coin.
8th place: Great Slave Lake – the deepest lake in Canada and throughout North America . Its maximum depth reaches 614 meters. For eight months of the year, the surface of the lake is covered with ice, which in winter is so thick that it can support a heavy truck. In the 1930s, gold was discovered here, which led to the founding of the city of Yellowknife on the shores of the lake.
7th place: Issyk-Kul- it's salty closed lake in the northern part of the Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan. Maximum depth of this deepest lake Central Asia– 702 meters. From the Kyrgyz language “ysyk kel” is translated as “hot lake”. It received this name due to the fact that its brackish water does not freeze even in severe winters. There are several connections with Lake Issyk-Kul interesting legends and stories. According to one of them, an ancient Armenian monastery with the relics of St. Matthew is kept in the lake. Another legend says that it was in this place that Tamerlane’s warriors laid down their famous pyramids from stones. In 2006, traces were found at the bottom of the lake ancient civilization, which existed 2.5 thousand years ago.
6th place: Malawi(another name is Nyasa) - the southernmost of the lakes of East Africa rift valley, located between Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania. This is the second deepest lake in Africa - its maximum depth is 706 meters. The tropical waters of Malawi contain the greatest diversity of fish species of any lake on Earth. Scientists have concluded that over the past 100 thousand years the depth of the lake has decreased by more than 100 meters. The causes of water loss are surface evaporation (up to 80%) and the Shire River, flowing from the southern part of the lake.
.jpg)
5th place: San Martin(another name is O'Higgins) is a fjord-shaped lake in Patagonia, located on the border of Argentina and Chile at an altitude of 250 meters above sea level. The area of the lake is 1058 km² and its depth is 836 meters. This deepest lake South America . In Argentina the lake is called San Martin, in Chile - O'Higgins. The lake is named after national heroes José de San Martin of Argentina and Bernardo O'Higgins of Chile, who fought together for the freedom of South America. The lake is fed by the waters of the Mayer River and small glacial streams, and flows into the Pascua River, which flows into Pacific Ocean. Unique Feature lakes have a milky blue hue to the water, which occurs due to particles of rock sediments that fall into the lake along with the meltwater of glaciers and settle on its bottom.
4th place: Caspian Sea – the largest endorheic lake on the planet with salt water, called the sea due to the fact that its base is made up of the earth's crust of the oceanic type. Located between Europe and Asia, the lake washes the shores of five countries - Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. The maximum depth of the Caspian Sea reaches 1025 meters, and its area is 371 thousand km². More than 130 rivers flow into the lake, the largest of which is the Volga. The Caspian Sea has a rich fauna - it is home to the Caspian seal, many sturgeon, and some species of fish are found only here. This huge body of water is a rich source of energy resources. Today, the total cost of oil and gas in the sea is 12 trillion. dollars.
3rd place: East – the deepest and largest of all subglacial lakes on Earth, covered with a thickness of ice of 4 kilometers. The unique reservoir is located in Antarctica, next to the Russian Antarctic station "Vostok", in honor of which it received its name. The estimated maximum depth of the lake is more than 1200 meters. The lake was opened in 1996. In February 2012, Russian scientists reached the surface of Lake Vostok, drilling into the ice shell of which lasted 20 years. Lake research can reveal a lot useful information world, because the conditions there are similar to those that existed many millions of years ago, and there is also an assumption that similar lakes exist on the satellites of Jupiter.
2nd place: Tanganyika- This deepest lake in Africa and the second deepest (1470 meters) in the world. It is also the first longest lake in the world (673 km), belonging to four countries - Tanzania, Congo, Burundi and Zambia. The lake is located in the deepest tectonic depression in Africa. It was discovered by chance in 1858 by British explorers John Speke and Richard Burton, who discovered it while searching for the source of the Nile. The lake is fed by several channels, and only one river flows out of it - Lukuga. Tanganyika is home to crocodiles, hippos, many waterfowl, and many unique fish species. After National Geographic magazine published a story about a 9-meter killer crocodile that caused the death of several dozen people, Lake Tanganyika has long been an object of special interest.
1st place: Baikal- This the deepest lake in Russia, Eurasia and the whole world, reaching a depth of 1642 meters. Located in the south Eastern Siberia The reservoir is the largest natural reservoir of fresh water - it stores 20% of the total supply of surface fresh water on the planet. The volume of water in Baikal is greater than in all US lakes combined. Baikal is also known as the oldest lake on Earth, formed 25-35 million years ago, although lakes usually do not exist for more than 15 thousand years. Baikal is a unique ecosystem; about 1,700 species of flora and fauna live here, many of which are found nowhere else. The lake is included in the list of objects World Heritage UNESCO.
You can find entire volumes of information about Baikal, both on the Internet and in various magazines and book publications. The lake is not deprived of attention from tourists, researchers and politicians. From year to year, stunning scientific discoveries are associated with Baikal; expeditions are constantly being equipped for thorough research. I decided to devote this topic to the most interesting facts and events related to Lake Baikal. I'll try to save you from boring geographical terms, only the most interesting things will be here. Most of the photos in the topic are clickable (open by clicking)
– one of the oldest lakes on the planet and the deepest lake in the world. Baikal is one of the ten largest lakes in the world. His average depth about 730 meters, maximum – 1637 meters. In 1996, Baikal was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List
Scientists disagree about the origin of Lake Baikal, as well as about its age. Scientists traditionally estimate the age of the lake at 25-35 million years. This fact also makes Baikal unique natural object, since most lakes, especially those of glacial origin, live on average 10-15 thousand years, and then fill with silty sediments and become swampy 
There is also a version about the relative youth of Baikal, put forward by Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Alexander Tatarinov in 2009, which received indirect confirmation during the second stage of the “Worlds” expedition on Baikal. In particular, the activity of mud volcanoes at the bottom of Lake Baikal allows scientists to assume that modern coastline the lakes are only 8 thousand years old, and the deep-sea part is 150 thousand years old
Baikal contains about 19% of the world's fresh water. There is more water in Baikal than in all five Great Lakes combined and 25 times more than, for example, in Lake Ladoga
The water in the lake is so transparent that individual stones and various objects can be seen at a depth of 40 m. The purest and most transparent water of Baikal contains so few mineral salts (100 mg/l) that it can be used instead of distilled water. 
Baikal is home to 2,630 species and varieties of plants and animals, 2/3 of which are endemic, that is, they live only in this body of water. This abundance of living organisms is explained by the high oxygen content in the entire thickness of Baikal water 
Photo of Baikal from space 
The most interesting fish in Baikal is the viviparous fish golomyanka, whose body contains up to 30% fat. She surprises biologists with her daily feeding migrations from the depths to shallow waters 
The second, after the golomyanka, is a miracle of Baikal, to which it owes its exceptional purity, the crustacean epishura (there are about 300 species). Baikal epishura is a copepod, 1 mm long, a representative of plankton, found throughout the entire depth (it is not found in bays where the water warms up). Baikal would not be Baikal without this copepod, barely noticeable to the eye, amazingly efficient and numerous, managing to filter all Baikal water ten times or even more in a year 
Typically lives here marine mammal- seal, or Baikal seal 
Baikal's water reserves would be enough for 40 years for the inhabitants of the entire Earth, and at the same time 46 x 1015 people could quench their thirst
Baikal ice presents scientists with many mysteries. Thus, in the 1930s, specialists from the Baikal Limnological Station discovered unusual forms of ice cover, characteristic only of Lake Baikal. For example, “hills” are cone-shaped ice hills up to 6 meters high, hollow inside. Appearance they resemble ice tents, “open” in the direction opposite to the shore. The hills can be located separately, and sometimes form miniature " mountain ranges»
Satellite images clearly show dark rings with a diameter of 5-7 km on the ice of Lake Baikal. The origin of the rings is unknown. Scientists believe that rings on the ice of the lake may have appeared many times already, but it was impossible to examine them due to their enormous size. Now using latest technologies this has become possible, and scientists will begin to study this phenomenon. Such rings were first discovered in 1999, then in 2003, 2005. As you can see, rings do not form every year. The rings are also not located in the same place. Scientists were especially interested in the reason for the shift of the rings in 2008 to the southwest, compared to 1999, 2003 and 2005. In April 2009, such rings were discovered again, and again in a different place than last year. Scientists suggest that the rings are formed due to the release of natural gas from the bottom of Lake Baikal. However, the exact reasons and mechanisms for the formation of dark rings on the ice of Lake Baikal have not yet been studied and no one knows their exact nature
The Baikal region (the so-called Baikal Rift Zone) is an area with high seismicity: earthquakes regularly occur here, most of which are one or two points on the MSK-64 intensity scale. However, strong ones also happen, so in 1862, during the ten-magnitude Kudarin earthquake in the northern part of the Selenga delta, a section of land with an area of 200 km went under water? with 6 uluses, in which 1,300 people lived, and Proval Bay was formed
A unique deep-sea neutrino telescope NT-200, built in 1993-1998, was created and operates on the lake, with the help of which high-energy neutrinos are detected. On its basis, the NT-200+ neutrino telescope with an increased effective volume is being created, the construction of which is expected to be completed no earlier than 2017
The first dives of manned vehicles on Lake Baikal were made in 1977, when the bottom of the lake was explored on the Canadian-made Paisis deep-sea vehicle. In Larch Bay, a depth of 1,410 meters was reached. In 1991, "Pysis" on the eastern side of Olkhon sank to a depth of 1,637 meters.
In the summer of 2008, the Foundation for Assistance to the Conservation of Lake Baikal conducted a research expedition “Worlds” on Lake Baikal. 52 dives of the deep-sea manned vehicles “Mir” were carried out to the bottom of Lake Baikal. Scientists delivered water samples to the Research Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after P. P. Shirshov. soil and microorganisms raised from the bottom of Lake Baikal
In 1966, production began at the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill (BPPM), as a result of which the adjacent bottom areas of the lake began to degrade. Dust and gas emissions negatively affect the taiga around the BPPM, and the forest becomes dry and dry. In September 2008, the plant introduced a closed water circulation system designed to reduce the discharge of wash water. According to the source, the system turned out to be inoperative and less than a month after its launch, the plant had to be stopped 
There are many legends associated with. The most fascinating of them is connected with the Angara River:
In the old days, mighty Baikal was cheerful and kind. He deeply loved his only daughter Angara. There was no more beautiful woman on earth. During the day it is light - brighter than the sky, at night it is dark - darker than a cloud. And no matter who drove past the Angara, everyone admired it, everyone praised it. Even migratory birds: geese, swans, cranes descended low, but the Angaras rarely landed on the water. They said: “Is it possible to blacken something light?”
Old man Baikal took care of his daughter more than his heart. One day, when Baikal fell asleep, Angara rushed to run to the young man Yenisei. The father woke up and splashed his waves angrily. A fierce storm arose, the mountains began to weep, forests fell, the sky turned black with grief, animals scattered in fear all over the earth, fish dived to the very bottom, birds flew away to the sun. Only the wind howled and the heroic sea raged. The mighty Baikal hit the gray mountain, broke off a rock from it and threw it after the fleeing daughter. The rock fell right on the beauty's throat. The blue-eyed Angara begged, gasping and sobbing, and began to ask:
Father, I am dying of thirst, forgive me and give me at least one drop of water.
Baikal shouted angrily:
I can only give you my tears!
For thousands of years, the Angara has been flowing into the Yenisei like tear-water, and gray, lonely Baikal has become gloomy and scary. The rock that Baikal threw after his daughter was called the Shaman Stone. Rich sacrifices were made there to Baikal. People said: “Baikal will be angry, it will tear off the Shaman’s stone, the water will gush and flood the whole earth.” Currently, the river is blocked by a dam, so only the top of the shaman stone is visible from the water 
There is a legend among the people about the creation of Baikal: “The Lord looked: the earth came out unkindly... as if she would not take offense at him! And, so as not to hold a grudge, he took and waved for her not some kind of bedding for her feet, but the very measure of his bounties, with which measured how much to be from him. The measure fell and turned into Baikal." 
