Turquoise-Emerald Ice Blocks - Lake Baikal

At some point in your life you might have heard of Lake Baikal. And what most people know about this lake is that it is the world's oldest and deepest freshwater lake. What else? Lets find out.

1. "In March, due to a natural phenomenon, Siberia’s Lake Baikal is particularly amazing to photograph. The temperature, wind and sun cause the ice crust to crack and form beautiful turquoise blocks or ice hummocks on the lake’s surface.”

Photograph by Alex El Barto

2. It is declared an UNESCO World Heritage Centre in 1996.

3.  It is the most voluminous freshwater lake in the world containing roughly 20% of the world's unfrozen surface fresh water, and at 1,642 m the deepest.
4.  Known as the 'Galapagos of Russia', its age and isolation have produced one of the world's richest and most unusual freshwater faunas, which is of exceptional value to evolutionary science.

5. Situated in south-east Siberia, the 3.15-million-ha Lake Baikal is also the oldest (25 million years) lake in the world.
6. It lies in a cleft where Asia is literally splitting apart, the beginnings of a future ocean.
7.  Surrounded by mile-high snowcapped mountains, Lake Baikal still offers vistas of unmatched beauty. The mountains are still a haven for wild animals, and the small villages are still outposts of tranquillity and self-reliance in the remote Siberian taiga, as the forest is called.
8. Lake Baikal is nicknamed "Older sister of Sister Lakes (Lake Khövsgöl and Lake Baikal)"

9. Since 1993, neutrino research has been conducted at the Baikal Deep Underwater Neutrino Telescope (BDUNT). The Baikal Neutrino Telescope NT-200 is being deployed in Lake Baikal, 3.6 km from shore at a depth of 1.1 km.
10. More than 300 streams and rivers flow into Lake Baikal, but there is just one outlet, the Angara.
11. More than half the species found in Lake Baikal are unique to this place.

Source: whc.unesco.org, www.lakebaikal.org