One-fifth of the world’s fresh water is located in Lake Baikal in southeastern Siberia. It is not only the world’s oldest lake, but at more than 5,000 feet (1637 m) deep, it is also the deepest. Lake Baikal is estimated to have formed about 20 to 25 million years ago. It also appears that it’s on its way to becoming an ocean as a cleft in the tectonic plate beneath it splits Asia apart.
Lake Baikal is located in one of the most beautiful areas in the region. The mountains surrounding it provide food and shelter for wild animals. There are several small, self-reliant villages nearby which often play host to tourists and researchers.
This giant lake is nearly 400 miles (640 km) long and 49 miles (79k) wide. It is so large that it creates its own micro-climate. And while more than 300 rivers and streams flow into the lake, only one, the Angara River, flows out.
The giant lake’s oxygen-rich waters and surrounding forest support about 1,200 different animal species, both land-based and aquatic, and over 600 types of plants. About 75 percent are found only in this environment. For example, the world’s only freshwater seals live in Lake Baikal and their favorite food is a pink, scaleless, partly transparent fish that bears live young.
Lake Baikal’s seals may have migrated southward from the Arctic and adapted to their new home by producing more blood, making it possible for them to swim underwater for more than an hour. They are also deep divers, able to reach depths of more than 800 feet (300 meters) below the surface.
Some of the lake’s fish survive more than a mile beneath the surface where water pressures are dramatically high. Like their deep sea counterparts, they literally explode when brought to the surface.
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