About lake Baikal - details from Enciclopedia

Lake Baikal is located in the south of Eastern Siberia, in the Buryat Autonomous Republic and the Region of Irkutsk, Russia.
It covers 31,500 sq.km and is 636 km.long, an average of 48 km wide, 79,4 km at its widest point.
Its water basin occupies about 557,000 sq.km. and contains about 23,000 cu.km. of water, that is, about one fifth of the world's reserves of fresh surface-water and over 80 per cent of fresh water in the former Soviet Union.
The average water level in the lake is never higher than 456 m.
The Baikal is the deepest lake in the world.
Its average depth is 730m. and its maximium depth in the middle - 1,620 m.

An interesting facts

Lake Baikal's beauty is exceptional, and so is the beauty of the area surrounding it.

Scientists are still debating the lakes origin. Some are trying to prove that it emerged as a result of tectonic processes of orogenesis, while others consider it as having been formed as a result of the earth crust moving its bottom gradually deeper. So far nobody has been proved right.

It would take all the rivers of the world - Volga, Don, Dneper and Yenisei, Ural and Ob, Ganges and Orinoko, Amazon and Thames, Seine and Oder - nearly one year to fill lake Baikal's basin, and it would take four hundred years for all the rivers, streams and brooks now flowing into the Siberian lake-sea.

The Baikal area is a veritable treasure trove of mineral resources. Sables thrive in the taiga around; valuable fur animals live in the surrounding mountains and valleys; birds and fish in the forests and rivers of the area. The near Dauro-Mongolian steppes are very fertile. There are hot springs in the vicinity of Lake Baikal, the water of which is of excellent qaulity. The Lake acts as a powerful generator and biofilter producing this water.

The map of the lake Baikal Map of the lake Baikal ( 230Kb )

Compared to the surrounding area, winter is milder and summer cooler on Lake Baikal. The average air temperature in January and February is about -19 C, and about +11 C in August. The surface-water temperature on the open part of the lake in August is +9-12 C and near the shore sometimes as high as +20 C.

Lake Baikal usually freezes in January and the ice breaks in May. The ice is 70-115 cm. thick. The average annual precipitation in the middle and the north of Baikal is 200-350 mm. and 500-900 mm. in the south.

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