Lake Baikal

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz; MODIS team; NASA, Posted on: Friday, 16 March 2007, 09:51 CDT Download full size image

Frozen Lake Biakal dominates this image of Siberia, Russia, which was acquired by the MODIS on the Terra satellite on March 4, 2007. Lake Biakal is not far from the border of Russia with Mongolia. The border is shown as a black line in the image.

Lake Biakal is deepest lake in the world, having a depth of 1,620 meters in the center, and it also holds more water than any other lake on Earth. It holds 1/5 of the world's fresh water. More than 330 rivers feed into Lake Biakal!

Lake Biakal is actually in a rift valley, which is a valley created between two tectonic plates that are either opening or sliding past each other. The lake is surrounded by mountains, which are visible (and snowcovered) in the image. The lake itself is old, estimated to be 25-30 million years old, making it one of the oldest lakes in the world!

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