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Geologic structure and earthquakes

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On all sides the Baikal hollow is surrounded by mountains: on the western shore the
lake is closely rimmed by the Primorsky and Baikalsky Ranges, with their maximum
height of 2,678 metres.
On the eastern side, Baikal is fringed by the
Barguzinsky and Ulan-Burgasy Ranges, and in the
south and south-east by the Khamar-Daban Range,
with its summit named Munku-Sardyk (eternally
snowy) reaching 3,491 metres above sea level. The
tops of the ranges and the valleys of the rivers
flowing down the Baikalsky, Barguzinsky, Khamar-Daban Ranges, evince rather
distinct traces of local mountain-valley glaciating. The last 250 thousand years
witnessed not less than 5 serious cold spells, and the last one only 10-15 thousand
years ago.
The northern part of Lake Baikal is the shallowest, with a maximum depth of 890
metres. Baikal and the mountains surrounding it came into existence due to fracturing
and movement of the earth's crust, resulting from tension inside the Earth itself. The
major geologic feature of the Baikal Territory is that it incorporates the borderline of
the great tectonic structures - the Siberian platform and its framing and the SayanoBaikalsky folded belt. Tectonic movements along this border never cease and are
manifested by earthquakes and by fluctuations of separate parts of the shores.
Annually, the ground seismic stations register up to 2,000 earthquake tremors; the
most sensitive seismographs, installed at various depths of the lake, identify them
more frequently. In 1862, north of the Selenga's delta, an area of land of about 200
square kilometres sank under water to a depth of 2 metres as the result of an
earthquake whose magnitude, as A. Voznesensky stated, reached magnitude 11. (This

compares to the magnitude 10 quake in Ashkhabad in1948, and the magnitude 7 in


Tashkent in 1967). The new bay formed on Baikal by the 1862 earthquake was called
Proval (gap), and the new water-ways that broke through, the Cape - Oblom (BreakOn).
Before the quake, old people
describe the area of Proval as the
Sagan-Moryan (White Steppe), upon
which were five Buryat uluses
(villages) that gave residence to
1,200 aborigines with their 867
houses and yurts (tents), and more
than 17,000 head of cattle. On the
New Year's eve (old style) the
residents heard a subterranean boom,
and water mixed with sand and silt
began splashing out of the wells. The
frightened people drove off the cattle
to more elevated parts of the
foothills, but the shaman Petrushka,
who enjoyed great respect and
indisputable authority, persuaded the
people to go back to the steppe, in
order to accept the penalty of
Burkhan - the god of Baikal. That night when the water came flooding over the
steppe, people forced their way to the high shore using either gates torn off their
Tiinges, or plain logs. All property and livestock perished.
On the 29th of August 1959, during an earthquake of magnitude 9,
the Baikal bottom was displaced for 12-20 metres.
http://www.irkutsk.org/baikal/geology.htm

Coastal and Marine Geology Program > Lake Baikal - A Touchstone for Global Change and Rift Studies

Lake Baikal - A Touchstone for Global Change and Rift Studies


USGS Fact Sheet
"The Lake Baikal rift system is a modern analogue for formation of ancient Atlantic-type
continental margins. It tells us the first chapter in the story of how continents separate and
ultimately develop into ocean basins like the Atlantic Ocean."
- Dr. Deborah Hutchinson, U.S. Geological Survey
"Lake Baikal is a unique, nearly pristine environment for the study of global change. Nowhere else
in the world can we go to study so long a record of such an important, but little known, part of the
global climate system."
- Dr. Steve Colman, U.S. Geological Survey

The special environmental and geological settings of Lake Baikal provide unparalleled
opportunities for research and for international
cooperation.
Lake Baikal is to Russia what the Grand Canyon is to the
United States: a magnificent natural resource that instills
national pride and awe. The Presidents of the United
States and the Russian Federation recognized the
uniqueness of Lake Baikal. In a recent Joint Statement,
they affirm the need to conserve the environment of
Lake Baikal and to use its potential for research in
Map showing location of Lake Baikal and
limnology, geology, and global climate change. The U.S. associated rift basins. [larger version]
Geological Survey's (USGS) Office of Energy and
Marine Geology and Office of International Geology, supported by the Coastal Geology
Program and the Global Change and Climate History Program, are involved in broad
collaborative programs to study Lake Baikal with the Russian Academy of Sciences and with a
number of American universities through the (U.S.) National Science Foundation.
Understanding the origin of the Lake Baikal rift contributes to understanding one of the
fundamental phenomena by which the history of the Earth is reconstructed.
Continental rifts, like the Lake Baikal rift, and their end products, such as passive continental
margins like the east coast of the United States, are ubiquitous in the Earth's geologic record.
They contain information from which a significant amount of the Earth's history has been
interpreted. Due to their high sedimentation rates, large rift lakes like Lake Baikal have great

potential for providing high-resolution information about both tectonic and climatic change.
Significantly, sedimentary deposits of continental rifts are also associated with many of the
Earth's hydrocarbon and mineral deposits.
USGS and Russian cooperative studies have begun to resolve the three-dimensional
geometry of the Lake Baikal rift.

Multichannel seismic reflection line


The R.V. Vereshchagin, a coring and highacross central part of Lake Baikal
resolution seismic vessel, docked on central
showing seismic data (top) and
Lake Baikal. [larger version]
interpretation (bottom). The thickest
deposits are confined to a narrow trough
that is 15 to 20 kilometers (9 to 12
miles) wide. [larger version]

Sediments of Lake Baikal reach thicknesses in excess of 7 kilometers (4 miles), and


the rift floor is perhaps 8 to 9 kilometers (more than 5 miles) deep, making it one of
the deepest active rifts on Earth. The shallowest sediments may contain the only
known freshwater occurrence of natural gas hydrates. Maps of complex fault
patterns and changing depositional environments provide the first opportunities to
describe the development of the lake and to help explain its unique flora and fauna.

Unique characteristics of the Lake Baikal


environment combine to produce an especially
promising site for studies of climate history.
Lake Baikal is the largest freshwater lake on Earth
containing 23,000 cubic kilometers of water, or roughly
20 percent of the world's total surface fresh water. It
contains as much fresh water as the Great Lakes of North
America combined. At over 1,600 meters (5250 feet), it
is the deepest lake in the world, and at perhaps more than
25 million years old, the oldest as well. The water of
Lake Baikal is so fresh that calcium carbonate does not
survive in the fossil record. Despite the lake's great

Ice-based drilling rig being tested on a small


marginal lake in North Baikal. Photo by D.
Williams. [larger version]

depth, its water is well-oxygenated throughout creating unique biological habitats.


The high latitude of Lake Baikal makes it particularly sensitive to climatic variations.
Climate variations, including those resulting from atmospheric accumulation of
carbon dioxide, are more pronounced at higher latitudes. Although the lake contains
a record of glaciation of surrounding mountains in its sediments, it is unique among
large, high-latitude lakes in that its sediments have not been scoured by overriding
continental ice sheets.

United States and Russian studies of sediment cores taken from Lake Baikal provide a
detailed record of climatic variation over the past 250,000 years.
Much attention is focused on numerical models of climate change but there have been few means
for reliably testing or modifying boundary conditions of general circulation models. Studies of
sedimentary environments in Lake Baikal provide important opportunities to establish ground
truth for general circulation models. Very little data exist for long-term climate change from
continental interiors; most of the data record derives from the marine or maritime environments.
Finally, studies of past environments contribute to understanding the extent to which human
activity affects natural conditions in the lake.

Graph showing percentages of biogenic silica in two


Lake Baikal cores. Since diatoms and algae are the
most important microorganisms in the lake,
biogenic silica is a measure of primary productivity.
Radiocarbon ages in years are shown by arrows.
First-order changes are caused by glacial (blue)interglacial (red) cycles, with transitions shown in
purple. Second-order fluctuations, such as the peak
at 3,770 years, are due to shorter climatic events.
[larger version]

Seismic and sediment core analyses are used to fix future drilling sites in Lake Baikal.
Ice-based drilling operations begun in early 1993 are providing longer (over 100 meters in
length) cores of Baikal sediments. Analyses of these cores are expected to reveal the climatic,
environmental, and geological history of the region as far back as 5 million years. Seismic data
will be tied to cores and drill samples to estimate rates of climate change and to map the history
of the lake and rift. Very deep drilling in Lake Baikal remains technologically challenging;
therefore, the deepest deposits of the rift are not likely to be sampled soon. However, the

potentially very long record of sedimentation in Lake Baikal provides unique opportunities to
understand the Cenozoic climate history of the Earth and to describe how continents begin to
break apart, giving rise to new ocean basins.
Contact Information
Dr. Deborah Hutchinson
U.S. Geological Survey
384 Woods Hole Rd
Woods Hole, MA 02543
Phone: (508) 457-2263
Fax: (508) 457-2310
Email: dhutchinson@usgs.gov

Dr. Steve Colman


U.S. Geological Survey
384 Woods Hole Rd
Woods Hole, MA 02543
Phone: (508) 457-2341
Fax: (508) 457-2310
Email: scolman@usgs.gov

http://pubs.usg
s.gov/fs/baikal/

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