South America has the deepest lake. Baikal is the deepest lake on Earth and the cleanest

This is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. Its depth is 1637 meters.

Located the most deep lake in the world almost in the center of the huge continent of Eurasia. Baikal stretches 636 kilometers in length and 80 kilometers in width.

The water of Lake Baikal accounts for 20% of all fresh water reserves in the world, and 90% in Russia. Baikal is also the cleanest lake in the world. Thanks to the activity of living microorganisms living in it, the water is slightly mineralized (almost distilled), which explains its crystal transparency. In spring, water transparency reaches 40 meters.

Feeds deepest lake in the world three hundred thirty-six permanent rivers and streams. The most big river, flowing into Lake Baikal, the Selenga River. Only one river flows out of the lake - the Angara. Thus, Baikal is the deepest lake and the largest reservoir of fresh water in the world.

Very diverse animal life and vegetable world deepest lake in the world. Here you can find whitefish, lenok, taimen - representatives of the salmon family. Sturgeon, grayling, pike, carp, catfish, cod, perch and many other fish families. There are also seals here, which are the only representatives of mammals in the lake. In autumn, you can see many of these Baikal seals on the rocky shores.

The seal is not the only inhabitant of the coasts; many gulls, mergansers, goldeneyes, scoters, scorches, white-tailed eagles, ospreys and other birds nest along the coasts and on the islands.

Lake Baikal attracts numerous tourists from all over the world with its beauty and amazingness. Infrastructure, recreation centers, and hotels are widely developing on the shores of Baikal.

Lake Baikal is natural heritage not only Russia, but the whole world, so we must take care of it, preserve its pristine nature. Baikal reveals to us many beautiful landscapes, looking at which will take your breath away...

There are about 5 million lakes in the world, but we have only heard about a few of the largest ones. Do you think that Baikal is the most big lake in the world? In fact, Baikal occupies only 7th place in the ranking of the largest lakes!

Did you know that the area of ​​the largest lake on the planet is equal to the area of ​​52 million football fields and is comparable to the area of ​​Moscow multiplied by 150 times? No? Then read below!

No. 10. Great Slave Lake - 28,930 square kilometers. North America.

Great Slave Lake is the 10th largest lake in the world by area, and it is also the deepest lake in North America. Its depth is 614 meters. The dimensions of Great Slave Lake are 480 km long, 19-109 km wide, and the area is 28,930 square kilometers.

From October to June the lake is frozen; in winter the ice can support the weight of trucks. Rivers flowing into the lake: Hay, Slave, Snowdrift, etc. The Mackenzie River flows out of the lake. The origin of the lake is glacial-tectonic.

No. 9. Lake Nyasa - 30,044 square kilometers. East Africa.

Lake Nyasa (Malawi) is the ninth largest lake in the world by area. Lake Nyasa fills a crack in the earth's crust in the Great Rift Valley in East Africa, located between Mozambique and Tanzania. The length of the lake is 560 km, depth - 706 m. Nyasa contains 7% of the world's reserves of liquid fresh water.

Nyasa is known for its rich ecosystem, many of the species found in the lake are endemic. The origin of the lake is tectonic.

No. 8. Great Bear Lake - 31,080 square kilometers. Canada.

Great Bear Lake is located 200 km south of Arctic Circle in Canada. The lake ranks eighth in area in the world and fourth in North America. Dimensions of the lake: length - 320 km, width - 175 km, maximum depth- 446 m.

The lake has not much good story. Uranium was found here. It was from here that uranium was mined to make the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The lake is almost always covered with ice; the ice rarely melts before the end of July. The origin of the lake is glacial-tectonic.

No. 7. Lake Baikal - 31,500 square kilometers. Eastern Siberia.

Baikal is the deepest lake in the world, the largest water reservoir, which contains 20% of the world's liquid fresh water reserves. Baikal is also considered one of the cleanest lakes in the world.

The lake ranks seventh in area in the world and first in volume. Dimensions of the lake: length - 636 km, width - 80 km, maximum depth - 1642 m, volume - 23,600 km3.
The origin of the lake is tectonic, its age is more than 25 million years. The fauna of Lake Baikal is one of the most unique in the world; many species are endemic.

No. 6. Lake Tanganyika - 32,893 square kilometers. Central Africa.

Lake Tanganyika is one of the deepest lakes in the world, along with Lake Baikal. The lake lies between 4 countries - Democratic Republic Congo, Tanzania, Zambia and Burundi.

Dimensions of the lake: length - 676 ​​km, width - 72 km, maximum depth - 1470 m, volume - 18,900 km3. The origin of the lake is tectonic.

Tanganyika lies in Africa's deepest tectonic basin and is part of the Congo River basin, one of the largest rivers in the world.

No. 5. Lake Michigan - 58,016 square kilometers. North America.

Lake Michigan is one of the Great Lakes. This lake is the largest lake located entirely within the United States. Michigan is the fifth largest in the world and the third largest among the Great Lakes. The volume of the lake is 4918 m3, length - 494 km, width - 190 km, maximum depth - 281 m. The origin of the lake is glacial-tectonic.

No. 4. Lake Huron - 59,596 square kilometers. North America.

Lake Huron is one of the Great Lakes. This lake is located on the territory of two countries: the USA and Canada. Huron is the fourth largest lake in the world. The volume of the lake is 3538 m3, length - 331 km, width - 295 km, maximum depth - 229 m. The origin of the lake is glacial-tectonic.

No. 3. Lake Victoria - 69,485 square kilometers. East Africa.

Lake Victoria is located in Tanzania and Kenya. With the construction of the Owen Falls Dam in 1954, the lake was converted into a reservoir. There are many islands on the lake. Fishing is developed on the lake and there are many ports in three countries. A national park has been established on the island of Rubondo (Tanzania).

Victoria is the third largest lake in the world. The volume of the lake is 2760 m3, length - 320 km, width - 274 km, maximum depth - 80 m. The origin of the lake is tectonic.

The lake was discovered and named in honor of Queen Victoria by British traveler John Henning Speke in 1858.

No. 2. Lake Superior - 82,414 square kilometers. North America.

Lake Superior is the second largest in the world and the largest among the Great Lakes, located on the border of the United States and Canada. The volume of the lake is 12,000 m3, length - 563 km, width - 257 km, maximum depth - 406 m. The origin of the lake is glacial-tectonic.

Etymology of the name. In the Ojibwe language, the lake is called Gichigami, which means “big water.”

No. 1. Caspian Sea - 371,000 square kilometers. Europe Asia.

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth, which is classified as the largest lake or sea due to its size. Located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Volume - 78,200 m3, length - 1200 km, width - 435 km, maximum depth - 1025 m. Length coastline The Caspian Sea is approximately 6500 kilometers.

130 rivers flow into the Caspian Sea, the largest of them are the Volga, Terek, Sulak, Ural, Kura, Artek, etc. The Caspian Sea washes the shores of Kazakhstan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Russia, and Azerbaijan.
The origin of the lake is oceanic.

In the most big country There is the deepest lake in the world, its name is Baikal. More than one volume of books is dedicated to this lake; legends are made about this lake. Every year tourists come to admire the beauty of Lake Baikal, researchers do not ignore the lake, and politics do not forget about the national heritage. Expeditions regularly gather to these places, ending with the most interesting discoveries.

Dimensions of Baikal

To walk along the bottom of the deepest lake in the world, you will have to descend to a depth of 1642 meters - this is the maximum low point Baikal. The average value is 744 meters. You can't get around Baikal on foot, bottleneck the lakes are 24 km, and the widest is 79 km, and the total length of the coast is 2 thousand 100 meters.

If you add up two countries, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, you can get an area equal to the area of ​​Lake Baikal.

The reservoir seems to be buried in the embrace of mountain ranges. Moreover, if in the western part the coast is literally lined with a fence of rocks, then the relief of the eastern part is significantly softened.

Water volume

No other lake contains so much fresh water. Just think about these numbers - 23 thousand 615 km3 - this is a fifth of all world reserves.

Baikal is second only to the Caspian Sea in terms of water reserves. If we take water from the five Great Lakes - Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario - and pour it into one giant vat, we still won't get Lake Baikal. It's so roomy!

The lake has amazingly clean water - a 40-centimeter water surface allows you to see the contents of the bottom.

Origin of the lake

The deepest lake in the world keeps the secret of its origin - scientists still do not know how old it is, or where it was formed from. An approximate estimate of the age of Baikal is about thirty million years. And even in this it is unique! Typically, the lifespan of glacial lakes is no more than 15 thousand years, then they die under silty sediments.

But not everyone agrees with the multimillion-year age of Baikal; Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Alexander Tatarinov is ready to argue with his colleagues. According to his calculations, the lake is no more than 150 thousand years old.

Flora and fauna

Surprisingly, new species of living organisms inhabiting the deepest lake in the world continue to be discovered. On this moment There are two thousand six hundred species of animals known, and a little more than two thousand of plants. Presumably, this constitutes no more than 80% of the entire flora and fauna of Lake Baikal.

Baikal is completely populated - both on the surface and in the depths. Moreover, almost half of all the creatures inhabiting the reservoir cannot be found anywhere else. Most of animals, and slightly less than half of the plants, are endemic. The lake became home to two hundred species of birds and 58 varieties of fish.

A unique animal lives here - the Baikal seal. This typical inhabitant of the seas, most likely during the Ice Age, sailed to these places from the Arctic Ocean and has since settled here. At the moment there are several tens of thousands of seals in the lake.

Baikal ice

Every year, in winter, Lake Baikal is covered with ice up to one and a half meters thick. Uniqueness Baikal ice the fact that, firstly, it is surprisingly transparent, and secondly, sokui appear on the surface - hills of ice. Such cones, hollow inside, can reach six meters in height.

Another mystery that scientists are struggling with is that circles form on the ice of the deepest lake - they are clearly visible on satellite images. Every year they appear in a new place; scientists have yet to find out what this is connected with.

Legends and myths

Local residents treat the lake with respect: they believe that Baikal is a living creature that must be handled with extreme care; no good will come to anyone who angers the powerful healer.

According to one legend, 336 river sons flowed into the waters of Father Baikal, and the Angara - their only daughter. In this way they replenished its waters. And it was like this until a bright feeling settled in the daughter’s heart. And the flow of the river turned back, and the Angara began to give her father’s water to her beloved Yenisei. The angry father, cursing, threw a piece of rock into the Angara. Since then, the Shaman Stone has been lying at the source of the Angara.

And people still believe that if you anger Father Baikal, he will tear the Shaman’s stone from its place, water will pour out and flood everything around. Currently, a dam has been built on the Angara, so only the top of the Shaman Stone is visible.

Lakes are natural bodies of water formed in depressions on land that store 67.4% of all fresh water on Earth. The sizes and depths of lakes can be very different, and some of them are significantly superior to many seas in these indicators.

This review presents ten deepest lakes in the world.

10th place: – a lake of tectonic origin, located in the south of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Its depth is 590 meters. Matano is the deepest lake in Indonesia. Lake Matano is an important source of fresh water in Indonesia, famous for its crystal clean waters, in which many live rare species plants, fish and crustaceans. On its banks there are deposits of nickel ore. The Patea River has its source in Matano, which, flowing through a waterfall, flows into Lake Mahalona.

9th place: – crater lake, which has a depth of 594 meters. Crater - deepest lake in the USA and the second deepest in North America. This lake is the main attraction of the same name national park, located in Oregon. Crater Lake was formed in a deep volcanic basin (caldera) more than 7 thousand years ago due to the destruction of the Mount Mazama volcano. Thanks to the melting snow, the water in the lake is especially clean and blue. Crater Lake has an unusual attraction - a huge log called the "Old Man of the Lake", which has been floating in a vertical position in the reservoir for more than a century. In 2005, Crater Lake was featured on the Oregon commemorative coin.

8th place: Great Slave Lake – the deepest lake in Canada and throughout North America . Its maximum depth reaches 614 meters. For eight months of the year, the surface of the lake is covered with ice, which in winter is so thick that it can support a heavy truck. In the 1930s, gold was discovered here, which led to the founding of the city of Yellowknife on the shores of the lake.

7th place: Issyk-Kul is a salty closed lake in the northern part of the Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan. Maximum depth of this deepest lake Central Asia– 702 meters. From the Kyrgyz language “ysyk kel” is translated as “hot lake”. It received this name due to the fact that its brackish water does not freeze even in severe winters. There are several connections with Lake Issyk-Kul interesting legends and stories. According to one of them, an ancient Armenian monastery with the relics of St. Matthew is kept in the lake. Another legend says that it was in this place that Tamerlane’s warriors laid down their famous pyramids from stones. In 2006, traces were found at the bottom of the lake ancient civilization, which existed 2.5 thousand years ago.

6th place: Malawi(other name - Nyasa) - the southernmost of the lakes of East Africa rift valley, located between Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania. This is the second deepest lake in Africa - its maximum depth is 706 meters. The tropical waters of Malawi contain the greatest diversity of fish species of any lake on Earth. Scientists have concluded that over the past 100 thousand years the depth of the lake has decreased by more than 100 meters. The causes of water loss are surface evaporation (up to 80%) and the Shire River, flowing from the southern part of the lake.

5th place: San Martin(other name - O'Higgins) is a fjord-shaped lake in Patagonia, located on the border of Argentina and Chile at an altitude of 250 meters above sea level. The area of ​​the lake is 1058 km² and its depth is 836 meters. This deepest lake in South America. In Argentina the lake is called San Martin, in Chile - O'Higgins. The lake is named after national heroes José de San Martin of Argentina and Bernardo O'Higgins of Chile, who fought together for the freedom of South America. The lake is fed by the waters of the Mayer River and small glacial streams, and flows into the Pascua River, which flows into Pacific Ocean. A unique feature of the lake is the milky blue hue of the water, which occurs due to particles of rock sediments that fall into the lake along with the meltwater of glaciers and settle on its bottom.

4th place: Caspian Sea – the largest endorheic lake on the planet with salt water, called the sea due to the fact that its base is made up of the earth's crust of the oceanic type. Located between Europe and Asia, the lake washes the shores of five countries - Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. The maximum depth of the Caspian Sea reaches 1025 meters, and its area is 371 thousand km². More than 130 rivers flow into the lake, the largest of which is the Volga. The Caspian Sea has a rich fauna - it is home to the Caspian seal, many sturgeon, and some species of fish are found only here. This huge body of water is a rich source of energy resources. Today, the total cost of oil and gas in the sea is 12 trillion. dollars.

3rd place: East – the deepest and largest of all subglacial lakes on Earth, covered with a thickness of ice of 4 kilometers. The unique reservoir is located in Antarctica, next to the Russian Antarctic station "Vostok", in honor of which it received its name. The estimated maximum depth of the lake is more than 1200 meters. The lake was opened in 1996. In February 2012, Russian scientists reached the surface of Lake Vostok, drilling into the ice shell of which lasted 20 years. Lake research can reveal a lot useful information world, because the conditions there are similar to those that existed many millions of years ago, and there is also an assumption that similar lakes exist on the satellites of Jupiter.

2nd place: Tanganyika- This deepest lake in Africa and the second deepest (1470 meters) in the world. It is also the first longest lake in the world (673 km), belonging to four countries - Tanzania, Congo, Burundi and Zambia. The lake is located in the deepest tectonic depression in Africa. It was discovered by chance in 1858 by British explorers John Speke and Richard Burton, who discovered it while searching for the source of the Nile. The lake is fed by several channels, and only one river flows out of it - Lukuga. Tanganyika is home to crocodiles, hippos, many waterfowl, and many unique fish species. After in the magazine National Geographic a story was published about a 9-meter killer crocodile that caused the death of several dozen people, Lake Tanganyika for a long time was an object of special interest.

1st place: Baikal- This the deepest lake in Russia, Eurasia and the whole world, reaching a depth of 1642 meters. Located in the south of Eastern Siberia, the reservoir is the largest natural reservoir of fresh water - it stores 20% of the total supply of surface fresh water on the planet. The volume of water in Baikal is greater than in all US lakes combined. Baikal is also known as the most ancient lake on Earth, formed 25-35 million years ago, although lakes usually do not exist for more than 15 thousand years. Baikal is a unique ecosystem; about 1,700 species of flora and fauna live here, many of which are found nowhere else. The lake is included in the list of objects World Heritage UNESCO.