Lake Baikal is the Deepest Lake in the World!

Lake Baikal is the oldest and deepest lake in the world and its foundation date probably goes to more than 25 million years back in history. It is wrapped in superlatives in southern Siberia and it is at a distance from north Mongolia in which Bayan Olgii lies.

However, a little was known about this lake for along time because it was hidden behind the mountains. People outside the area knew the lake only after the construction of the trans-Siberian railway between the years 1896 and 1902, which encircled the lake.

The lake is also one of a series of beautiful places in Russia on this website like Altai Mountains, Beautiful Irkutsk City, Bering Sea, Siberia and Yamal Peninsula. Those pages are also included alphabetically in the Beautiful Site Map to facilitate your browsing.

The following article is about Lake Baikal and the threat of global warming. If you have more information about this topic, please use the form on this page to write it. I have some valuable gifts for you just for doing this. Thank you so much.

The 1,700 metres deep lake is also the largest freshwater lake in relation to volume and it contains more water than all the water in North America's Great Lakes combined. That is equal to 20% of the world's fresh surface water.

The only rivers that feed the lake or flow from it are Angara River, which flows from the lake and the Selenge River, which flows into the lake. The Mongolian Orkhon River rises from the Khangai Mountains in Arkhangai Aimag in Mongolia and feeds the Selenge River.

Because of its great age and total isolation, Lake Baikal contains unique flora and fauna in the world, which is of great value to the evolutionary science. This existence of animal and plant species gave the lake its nickname "Galapagos of Russia".

It is home to more than 2,000 plant and animal species not found anywhere else on the planet, including the Baikal freshwater seal, also called nerpa.

Among these species there are also 56 freshwater fish species including 40 sculpin species, burbot, bream, bullhead, Baikal oil fish, Baikal seal, Baikal whitefish and other fish.

There are 1550 animal species, 170 migratory bird species and 1,085 plant species.

Animal species include Alpine hare, brown bear, black tailed antelopes, chipmunk, wild goats, kolinsky and gazelles.

Bird species include home and migratory birds such as swans like Cygnus or Anser cygnoides and goose, red-crested pochard duck, black stork (ciconia nigra), honey buzzard.

Plant species range from conifer forest to Alpine plants. They include old larches, cedars, wildflowers, pulp and paper plants.

Before more than 25 million years, the formation of Lake Baikal happened when the Earth's crust split up into a giant rift valley in the Siberian plateau. That rift is seemingly still active and expands about two centimetres a year, so the lake expands constantly.

For a long time it is thought that, Lake Baikal remained unaffected by human activities because of a unique self-cleaning ecosystem.

The endemic zooplankton Epischura baicalensis suck toxic particles out of the lake and cleans the waterway.

The Epischura baicalensis forms 96% of the zooplankton, works as filter, and filters the water from detritus.

However, studies have now shown that Epischura does not neutralise contamination but only pass pollution continuously to animals higher up the food chain.

Lake Baikal cannot keep itself free of global warming. Biodiversity in Lake Baikal is adapted to the long cold winters where the water freezes to ice in five months. However, in the last 60 years, the water in Lake Baikal has become 1º C warmer, and winters have become shorter.

A future increase in temperature as projected to happen will have serious consequences for the whole ecosystem, not only the Epischura that is dependent on a narrow temperature range. Pollution and global warming threaten to wipe out large parts of the ancient fauna and flora in Lake Baikal.

There are some beautiful Russian villages and cities on the lake or near it.

Attractive villages such as Listvyanka and prosperous cosmopolitan as Irkutsk stretch bedise the lake or near it, among them are historical towns on the Selenga Delta. The Olkon Island is at the west of the delta and Barguzin Valley is at the east. Severobaikalisk region is at the far north.

Are there any hotels, rooms, apartments and studios on the shore of Lake Baikal or near it? Of ourse, there are many hotels.

It is not easy to find the best hotel, though. The following hotels on the following image could reply to your needs.

In addition to Lake Baikal in Russia, there are some other beautiful places in this great country such as Altai Mountains, Beautiful Irkutsk City, Bering Sea, Siberia and Yamal Peninsula.

Millionaire Match offers dating services for locals in the towns on the beautiful shores of the lake!

Get married with local Russian marriage celebrations and do not forget to invite us too to your marriage, so we could take some cheers!

You can comment, correct wrong information or write about any of those beautiful places on the shores of the lake and get more gifts. If you wanted to comment or write about other beautiful places, please target posts to those pages or do that at Any Beautiful City.

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Millionaire Match offers dating services for locals in the beautiful areas along the shores of the lake!

Get married with local marriage celebrations and do not forget to invite us too to your marriage, so we could take some cheers!

All comments and articles about the beautiful Irkutsk City appear at the second section of the page above this paragraph and below the form.

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