Hi there! My name is Tatiana Baksheeva. I am based in Irkutsk City, Eastern Siberia, Russia.
My mission is pretty simple. If you failed to find the information about Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world, and its area, that you had been seeking for a long time on the web, feel free to request it from me via the contact form.
I’ve been asked if there are any undiscovered islands at Lake Baikal. Baikal is quite well-studied and according to open sources there are no undiscovered islands there at the moment. However, everything is changing)
To make my answer more complete, I decided to describe some islands of the Lake. There are different opinions on how many islands actually are at the Lake.
Wiki says that there are 27 islands at Lake Baikal.
The largest one is Olkhon Island,its length 71 km, width – up to 12 km, area – 730 square km. There is the deepest point – 1637 meters – not far from the outer side of island.
Olkhon Island. Photo by Vasiliy Maslukov
There are also Uskanyei Islands, a small archipelago of rocky shores in the middle of Lake Baikal near the Holy Nose Peninsula (Republic of Buryatia). There are 4 islands in the archipelago – Big Ushkaniy (the area of ??9.4 km²), the maximum height above the lake – about 210 meters, and Thin, Round and Long islands. They are covered with larch forest. There are Baikal Seal rookeries on the banks. Human impact is minimal, because these islands are part of the Trans-Baikal National Park. One needs permission to land for visiting Ushkaniye Islands.
Ushkaniye Islands. Photo by Vasiliy Maslukov
YarkiIslandis located at the north of Lake Baikal, its length is 20 km, and width from 10 to 200 meters. The island is rapidly destroying because of its sandy structure and the constant rise of water level in Lake Baikal.
Yarki Island. Photo by Anna Lempert
The writer and Baikal researcher Vitaliy Bryanskiy in his book “Hello, Baikal!” (1989) says there are 35 islands at Lake Baikal. He suggests that Lake Baikal has also such islets as separate large stones, boulders, pebbles or clusters. Some of them have vegetation and nests with gulls’ eggs.
Currently, most of the islands of Lake Baikal are enlisted as natural monuments or included to the two national parks.
These are photographs of the last year’s winter trekking expedition “Siberian Express for Water” done by Impossible2Possible (i2P) along Russia’s Lake Baikal from its very south to its very north. 650 km on the ice! Incredible achievement!
Here’s what the Siberian Express for Water expedition participants say:
In 2010 i2P Founder Ray Zahab and i2P Ambassador Kevin Vallely teamed up for another epic impossible2Possible expedition. The two adventurers travelled to the far reaches of frozen Siberia and the remote shores of Lake Baikal, the oldest, deepest lake in the world, to run some 650km unsupported down the length of its frozen surface. The team averaged approximately 50km per day on this grueling expedition, while hauling all of their food and supplies. Over 8,500 students took part in both the Experiential Learning program and fundraising initiative for water projects in Africa.
Apart from photographs, Ray Zahab sent me answers to our questions. Further, please, find the interview with him. Additionally, the documentary about the expedition is attached.
At 34,000 square kilometers, Baikal is larger than Belgium. Crescent-shaped, 636 kilometers (400 miles) north-to-south, 81 kilometers across, it has 2000 kilometers of shoreline. It is more or less the same size as Lake Superior.
Lake Baikal. A view from Ushkaniy Island to Svyatoy Nos (Saint Nose). Photo courtesy Vasiliy Maslukov
Baikal contains 23,000 cubic kilometers of pure, delicious, oxygen-saturated, life-giving water, more than all five Great Lakes combined. This is one-fifth of all fresh water liquid reserves on earth. It takes 400 years for all the water in Baikal to drain out through its outlet, the Angara river.
Lake Baikal's pure water. Photo courtesy Vasiliy Maslukov
Lake Baikal in Spring. Photo courtesy Vasiliy Maslukov
The movements of the Earth’s crust are widening the fault under the lake by 2 centimeters (1 inch) every year. Thus Baikal can collect new sediment without any loss to its huge volume.
Between 20 and 25 million years of age, possibly even 50 million years old. Besides Lake Tangyanika (about 2 million years), all other lakes date back less than 20,000 years.
Dr Anson W. Mackay on the hill, overlooking Lake Baikal. Photo courtesy of Ewan Shilland.
Hereby, we are really proud to present an exclusive interview done with Dr Anson W. Mackay, a professor at the Environmental Change Research Centre, Department of Geography at University College London, who shares his thoughts about Russia’s Lake Baikal and its environmental state.
In May of 2011, we were really lucky to have him giving us a like on the Ask Lake Baikal facebook page. Actually, we didn’t do anything to attract his attention. Dr. Mackay is a big admirer of Lake Baikal himself. Has been to the area many times and cares much of its ecology. In our turn, we do what we love to do. We share our passion for the world’s largest & deepest lake.
Our interaction with Dr Mackay started from Voice of Russia‘s live radio story dedicated to pollution in Lake Baikal. There was a live talk on air with Nikolai Yasinsky from the Russian Geographical Society and Dr. Anson W. Mackay. You can listen to it online here.
We had our own questions to the UK-based professor, who, thank God, was really kind to give us answers. Proceed to read the interview.
Yes, it’s summer right now! Summer! Pretty hot outside. So, why not chill out?! Let’s look back and see what we had a couple of months ago on Lake Baikal, Siberia / Russia. Magic ice! It’s like a diamond. You can’t stop admiring it!
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