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Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More
Lake Baikal: The Largest Lake on Earth
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It is the deepest freshwater lake in the world, the oldest lake in the world, and it holds more fresh water than all five of the Great Lakes combined. Hidden in Siberia, Lake Baikal is a place where geology, evolution, history and myth all come together. It has its own seal species, its own unique ecosystem, and a story that stretches back millions of years. Learn more about Lake Baikal, one of the greatest natural wonders on Earth, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Mint Mobile. There are things in life that you do not want to be transparent, like your swimsuit or your search history. But when it comes to your wireless bill, transparency is everything. That's why Mint Mobile's wireless plans have no gimmicks and no gotchas, just high speed data and reliable coverage on the T Mobile 5G network. And right now, all plans are $15 a month, even the unlimited plan. 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Quint's has become one of those places I trust when I want my home to feel a little more comfortable and put things together without overpaying. Everything at quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman so you're paying for exceptional quality, not brand markup. And of course, it's not just home furnishings. Quints has become a trusted favorite for everything from travel gear to clothing to everyday essentials. In addition to fixing up your home, you can make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quince.com daily for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's quince.com daily for free Shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com daily. Lake by Call holds a set of distinctions that are unmatched by any other body of fresh water on planet Earth. It is simultaneously the world's oldest lake, its deepest, and by volume, the world's largest reservoir of unfrozen fresh water. Lake Baikal lies in southeastern Siberia in Russia, north of Mongolia, near the city of Irkutsk. It's long, narrow and crescent shape, stretching roughly northeast to southwest. It's about 640km or 400 miles long, but only a few dozen kilometers wide in many places. The lake is surrounded by mountains, including the Baikal Mountains to the northwest and the Barguzen Range to the east. These mountains give Baikal its dramatic appearance steep shorelines, deep blue water, and rocky capes that extend into the lake. One interesting fact about the lake is that it has hundreds of inflowing rivers and streams, but only one that goes out the Angara river, which flows west from the lake towards the city of Irkutsk and eventually joins the Yenisei river system on its way to the Arctic Ocean. That fact alone makes Baikal's hydrology important, as it isn't just a scenic body of water. It's a major node in the freshwater system for all of northern Asia. In the winter, Lake Baikal freezes over, often forming exceptionally clear ice. In the summer, its vast mass of water keeps the surrounding shores cooler than the inland areas. The lake's seasonal ice cover isn't just picturesque, it's central to its entire ecology, affecting light, algae, oxygen circulation, and the timing of life cycles in the water. Lake Baikal exists because Asia is slowly tearing itself apart at that location. It lies within the Baikal Rift zone, one of the world's most important active continental rift systems. In most lakes, time works against them becoming any deeper. Sediment fills basins, rivers and streams, reducing water levels, and lakes eventually shrink or disappear. Baikal has survived because tectonic forces keep deepening and renewing its basin. The rift began forming tens of millions of years ago, when the crust stretched apart, creating a long trough. Water filled the depression, rivers carried sediment into it, and the lake evolved into the enormous basin that we see today. Seismic studies show that Lake Baikal contains several miles of sediment at the bottom of the lake, which accumulated over millions of years. Researchers have identified deposits that are roughly 2 to 4.5 miles thick. Because of the rift, Baikal is less an ordinary lake and more like an embryonic ocean basin, although it's not certain that it will ever actually become one. Its formation is very similar to the creation of the African Rift lakes, which I covered in a previous episode. The rift is still active. Earthquakes occur in the region, Hot springs are found around the lake, and the surrounding landscape continues to be shaped by faulting and uplifting. What really sets Baikal apart from every other lake in the world is its volume and depth, both of which are a result of the rift. The lake reaches a maximum depth of roughly 1,642 meters, or about 5,387ft, making it the deepest lake in the world by a wide margin. The depth of the lake doesn't include the miles of sediment that extend below its bottom, because it holds roughly 23,600 cubic kilometers of water. Baikal contains approximately 20% of all the unfrozen fresh water on planet Earth, more than all five of North America's Great Lakes combined. Despite having a surface area Smaller than that of just Lake Michigan, Baikal's depth also gives it unusual circulation patterns. Deep lakes can become stratified, with upper and lower waters mixing only under certain conditions. Yet Baikal's waters are oxygenated to remarkable depths Compared to that of many other deep lakes. This supports life far below the surface and helps explain the lake's unusual biological richness. Baikal is sometimes called the Galapagos of Russia because of its age, isolation, and endemic species. A very large number of Baikal's plants and animals are found nowhere else on Earth. Its most famous animal is the Baikal seal, or nerpa, the only exclusively freshwater seal species in the world. How seals reach Lake Baikal remains debated, but the most likely explanation involves ancient connections through Arctic river systems, followed by isolation and adaptation. The lake is also home to the omul, a whitefish that has historically been central to local diets and commerce. Its invertebrate life is even more remarkable. Baikal has an extraordinary diversity of amphiphods, sponges, mollusks, worms, and microscopic organisms. Many of these species are highly specialized, adapted to cold, clear, oxygen rich water, to ecological niches that don't exist in younger, shallower lakes. The lake's biodiversity is not just a catalog of strange species. It's a living experiment in evolution. Because Baikal is so old, the lineages have had time to diversify inside the lake itself. Human presence around Lake Baikal reaches back for many thousands of years, with archaeological evidence of hunter gatherer populations along its shores, extending into the Upper Paleolithic. Over subsequent millennia, the region has become home to various Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic Speaking peoples. By the time of Russian eastward expansion in the 17th century, the dominant indigenous group in the region was the Buryats, a Mongolic people who developed a rich shamanistic and later Tibetan Buddhist influence to religious tradition in which Baikal itself occupied a sacred place. Russian Cossack explorers reached the lake in the 1640s as part of the broader Russian conquest and colonization of Siberia, and Lake Baikal was gradually incorporated into the expanding Russian Empire over the following decades. Its remoteness made it a natural site for sending people into exile. From the 18th through the 19th and even into the 20th centuries, the Siberian region surrounding Baikal became a destination for political prisoners and exiles, including the Decembrists after the failed 1825 uprising and numerous later revolutionaries, giving the lake and its surrounding taiga an association with punishment and isolation in the Russian cultural imagination. Scientific investigation of the lake accelerated in the 19th century, particularly under the auspices of the Russian Academy of Sciences and later Soviet scientific institutions, culminating in the establishment of dedicated special Lake Baikal research bodies. In the 20th century, Lake Baikal played a major role in one of the largest infrastructure projects in world history. The Trans Siberian Railway. In the late 19th century, Russia sought to connect European Russia with the Pacific. The railway was meant to supply, populate and integrate Siberia while moving raw materials and strengthening imperial control across the continent. The Trans Siberian, as part of a wider 19th century Russian rail expansion, was intended to supply and populate Siberia and deliver raw materials westward. Lake Baikal posed a major engineering problem for the Trans Siberian Railway. The railway could reach the lake's western and eastern shores, but the lake itself interrupted the line. Before the Circum Baikal railway was completed, trains and passengers had to cross the lake by ferry. In the winter, icebreakers ferried train cars across the lake to connect the two railroads. The Circum Baikal Railway, built around the southern end of the lake in the early 20th century, was an extraordinary engineer engineering achievement. It required tunnels, bridges and retaining walls along steep, rocky shorelines. It was the most technically difficult and expensive section of the Trans Siberian Railroad. Later, the construction of the Irkuts hydroelectric station on the Angara river changed the railway's role. Water levels rose, older sections were affected, and the main Trans Siberian route had to be redirected. The Circum Baikal line was eventually reduced to a dead end historic and tourist route rather than a main railroad arch artery. During the Soviet period, Baikal became an industrial site and subsequently one of the earliest and most prominent environmental controversies in Soviet history. Established in 1966 on the lake's southern shore. The Baikalisk pulp and paper mill was built to manufacture a specific grade of cellulose initially intended for aircraft tire cord. Its construction triggered sustained protests from Soviet scientists and authors, which was remarkable as there was no dissent inside the Soviet Union. Facing various economic and political pressures, the mill functioned intermittently until it was permanently closed in 2013. Nevertheless, the toxic accumulation within its legacy waste lagoons continues to be an active concern. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the largest economic activity in the region has been tourism. Baikal is one of Russia's most famous natural destinations, drawing visitors to the shore of the lake Ocon island, the Circumbaikal railway, winter ice routes, hiking trails, and lake cruises. The region has attracted hotel investments and was declared a Special economic zone in 2007, partially to encourage tourism development. Tourism can create many jobs, but it also creates pressures from sewage waste, illegal construction, and poorly regulated operators. Recent studies have warned that mass tourism around Baikal can damage the very environment that makes the lake economically valuable as a tourist attraction. Fishing is another traditional economic use, especially the catch of Omul, the lake's famous whitefish. Fishing is cultural and commercial importance for lakeside communities, but it's not the dominant industry anymore. In economic terms, Baikal's fishery is less important because of its scale than because it's a local food source. Perhaps the most important proposal floated for the lake's future concerns its vast freshwater reserves. The most realistic proposals have involved bottling Baikal water and selling it, especially to China. And this isn't a fantasy. Several companies have tried to market Lake Baikal water as a premium natural product, and the idea has obvious commercial appeal. Pure Siberian water from the world's deepest lake can be a pretty powerful brand. The most controversial example came in 2019, when a Chinese funded bottling plant near the village of Kultuk on the southern shore of Lake Baik, the focus of public outrage. A more dramatic idea is a pipeline from Lake Baikal to northern or northwestern China. China has a chronic water problem, especially in the north and northwest, where agriculture, industry, cities, and desertification all put pressure on water supplies. One of the most widely reported proposals appeared around 2017, when planners in Lanzhou, China, floated the idea of pumping water from Lake Baikal to relieve shortages. Reports describe possible routes of 1-2000km, with water being pumped uphill across extremely difficult terrain. The odds of this happening are very, very slim. For obvious geopolitical and engineering reasons, Russia will probably never allow water to be pumped out of the lake, regardless of how much water it holds. Moreover, Lowering the lake's water level would endanger many of the endemic species in and around the lake, and the lake was listed as a UNESCO World heritage site in 1996, which gives it a protected status. Over the next several million years, Lake Baikal will probably become larger and deeper as the rift continues to widen and Asia continues to spread apart. Lake Baikal is far more than just a big body of fresh water. It's one of the planet's oldest geologic stories, a living laboratory of evolution, a sacred landscape for native people, and a resource whose value will only increase as fresh water becomes more precious. Despite its massive size, its location and age make it extremely fragile, which sort of proves the point that even big things can sometimes be extremely sensitive. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible, and I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast, and links to those are available in the show notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you too can have it read on the show.