Fun fact. The lake is over 1600 meters deep, but the rift valley in which it sits is about 7000 meters deeper. Most of it is filled by the massive amounts of sediments that have accumulated during those many millions of years.
So it was deeper in the past? So as ancient as it is it's still not gonna last forever. It'll eventually either fill in or as the rift valley widens it'll simply evaporate.
I'm half Buryat through my mother, and I've been there once when I was a kid. It's absolutely beautiful. It's so narrow you can see easily see the other shore, and it shimmers in the sun...
There is a also a greatly endangered subspecies of fresh-water seals living in a single lake in Finland. They’re called Saimaa Ringed Seal (according to the Saimaa lake that they live in) and there’s only a few hundred individuals currently living. The seals are called Saimaannorppa in Finnish; funny how the word norppa is quite similar to nerpa. :) Finnish WWF arranges a live cam each May called Norppalive (because that’s when they spend time out of the water to shed their winter fur) and there you can sometimes catch the rare seals lounging on rocks in lake Saimaa. Wonderful and loveable creatures. People in Finland go to great lengths to try to protect them.
@@Tsuchimursu I think it depends how you define seal, is it by species or subspecies! Nerpas are the only species of seal that are exclusively fresh water. Saimaa Ringed seals are a subspecies of ringed seal, and ringed seals aren't exclusively fresh water. SciShow were probably aware of this but could have made the sentence clearer
Also with this, this kinda destroys the pangaea ultima formation idea, as in that scenario it doesn't include the widening of lake baikal. But eay, that's just a hypothtical speculation, and it doesnt have to be accurate.
“Baikal” is Russianized Mongolian word. The real name is Baigali or “Байгаль”. Please, always remember you’re Mongolian and use your word, my folk. Not Baikal, it’s Baigali, Baigali, Baigali. Baigali is a Mongolian lake, our lake. OK? You’re not Russian. You’re Mongolian. Okay? Repeat after me. Baigali Baigali Baigali Байгаль Байгаль Байгаль.
On a more serious note, when I was there visiting my wife's family, I talked to many people and found out that there are many problems - tourism, litter, water pollution and most frighteningly a "secret" deal between the local Russian government and China to make a pipeline for exporting freshwater from Baikal. Apparently the project is already underway, even though many locals are protesting and sabotaging it.
Noukz37 I just did a quick google search to see if that was true. It seems a few news sites have covered the issue. That’s quiet scary to imagine. If they build the pipeline it will only lead to more pipelines and more water being pumped out. China will use that water to grow the areas that are currently dry, needing more water every year. This seems like a slippery slope. I hope it doesn’t go through.
I can't explain how excited I was to see this video! I did a whole project on the cottid fishes of Lake Baikal last semester! Baikal is really something to behold!
Our engineers cannot forge weights heavy enough for Muscle Hank to exercise with; so instead he lifts marine boulders beneath the pressure of millions of tons of water in order to achieve his gains.
Nerpa is not the only exlusively fresh water seal in the world! There are also Saimaa ringed seal (only 380 left) and Ladoga seal (only 2000-3000 left)!
Good point, however, Saimaa and Ladoga seals are technically considered subspecies of ringed seal which usually lives in the ocean. They're basically populations of ringed seals that have been stuck in fresh water only since the last glacial period ended about 10,000 years ago. DNA studies suggest the ancestors of Nerpa that reached lake Baikal around 400,000 years ago were also closely related to ringed seals. See www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14624043
smurfyday I think you should listen it once again: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AjJUFyd4Cac.html "These are the only exclusively fresh water seals in the world". And apparently ELA means English Language Arts. I don't think ELA classes will help you.
A bit strange to say that the Buryat are "the native people of Siberia" as they are but one of many indigenous groups there. That's like saying the Iroquois are "the native people of North America"
Agreed. The Buryat are the northernmost subgroup of the Mongols and are really only native to the area around the lake. Siberia is much bigger than Europe even, so it’s a little misleading to call them the native people when they’re only one of many completely unrelated groups.
Rusian Loch Ness Monster!?! Trains of Gold!?! We're rich! Well, cool scientific discoveries are just as awesome! ( But I still kinda want that Loch Ness monster thingy to be real. )
Hollywood adaptation will include intrepid explorers battling the Lusud-Khan for the gold, with the help of a sexy nerpa (pictured as some sort of mermaid).
Speaking of Nessie, If Nessie does somehow exist, (FYI highly unlikely) there is a far better candidate than the plesiosaur that people normally envision. Another group of aquatic reptiles the Choristoderes share many of its supposed traits more accurately than plesiosaurs and unlike the plesiosaurs they lived through the end Cretaceous extinction well into the Cenozoic with the last known fossil evidence of them from 18 Mya which is certainly younger than lake Baikal. While I doubt a air breathing reptile could survive there without having been discovered it would be far more plausible than other claims.
Sophie the Jedi Knight : Alas, nature rarely has a “Happy Ending”, even when a$$h@t humanity isn’t involved. The irony here is the little big eyed fur balls are “canaries in the coal mine” we call planet earth. Their fate is our fate...right now extremely rich rats are focused on preparing to leave the ship!
Russians and the Chinese... don't exactly have the best track record for protecting endangered species. The Soviets did actually do a great job protecting/saving the Saiga Antelope, but when the USSR fell the Chinese more or less nearly drove it to extinction overnight :/
@@arthas640 The number of Siberian tigers has also increased by more than 300% since the 90th. And they was on the brink of instinction. so we are improving!
@Sophie the jedi Knight " Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering" - Thanks Sophie, just when we thought we rid the galaxy of the Sith, seems we have a growing Sith lord in our midst... i mean, we remember the last time a Jedi got scared, now don't we?
Fun fact, growing up in Ukraine we always drank this soda that called baikal, but it was just Russia trying to compete with Coca-Cola. We always joked that's what the lake was filled with.
Exchange of water between strata in bodies of water is called "mixotaxis," not "convection," which applies to non-liquids. Mixotaxis is complex in many bodies of water and involves differences in mineral content, density and other factors. Many times, layers do not mix readily.
Weirdly happy to hear an American place the stress in BaiKAL on the correct syllable! :D Most people pronounce is BAIkal which, although understandably an easy error for English speakers, always sounds strange. Yay SciShow! Thanks for covering this cool topic!
It is critical to our ecosystems that these deep lakes survive. I love Lake Tahoe and Crater Lake - so very unique and deep - and I hope the people of Buryatia can keep this lake pristine. It is a rare jewel.
I want to know more about what's at the bottom of Lake Tanganyika, the second oldest, second deepest, and the longest freshwater lake in the world. Both are rift valley lakes, but Lake Tanganyika is hypoxic so I want to know what lives down there.
*Buryats are A Siberian native ethnicity, there is not one native group in Siberia but there's several different native groups from different larger groups. Buryats are a Mongolic people native to the Republic of Buryatia where Lake Baikal is located.
A couple questions...first, is Lake Baikal, many millions of years in the future, a potential ocean formation site? And second, are the lights seen in Baikal explainable by any sort of bioluminescent creature being stirred up at night?
Lake Baikal might not be a lake at all but really a sea in the making. I was born near the Great Lakes in Midwest America and as far as I know all geologic activity has ceased and there are no thermal vents. The Great Lakes lakes will be the same in a million years as they are today. But Lake Baikal is growing and geologically active, 2 - 5cm per year adds up over time. It will eventually be the Baikal sea.
I have been burning hundreds of old air conditioners, refrigerators, and DVDs of The first Ice age movie in an attempt to please the gods of cold so that they will be powerful enough to over throw the evil tyrants of heat. Each offering brings them yet more strength I can feel it getting colder with each passing day, and the sun sets each night a little quicker. Soon they will rise and smite global warming with their chilling touch.
Make sure to do the correct rituals; if you don't, you will only please some ice elementals, which the lords of heat will be able to overthrow with time.
@@electroflame6188 your words are wise indeed I will be sure to burn more broken plastic snow globes and first aid cold compresses in my next offering!
Last I checked Lake Baikal is one of the least polluted bodies of water in the world, though not for lack of trying. It's remoteness is mostly what keep it safe, and the fact that it is the largest lake in the world by volume means that what pollution there is in the lake is extremely diluted.
This staggering fact, threw of my concentration for the rest of the video. Here in the US 2 cm = about 3/4 of an inch. The lake grows less than an inch a year. Wow. Most useless fact ever...
Jeremy Thelen "Here in th US" ... yeah, like centimeters change in other countries of the world. In fact, your comment must be the most useless and less intelligent of youtube. Congrats.
some ideas, maybe: the blizzard beach waterpark has a pool area that uses *hollow plastic to imitate floating ice chunks.* maybe scientists can use a better material than plastic, but use the general idea to help the seals. treat the lake like a massive fish tank and *build solar/wind powered pumps* that'll help oxygenate the water, and use *pool skimming robots* to collect a bunch of the toxic algae from the surface
What's at the Bottom of the Deepest Lake in the World? All my dead bod-- er, chickens. Yup, just a bunch of chicken bones... *Cough cough* Nothing to see down there.
Fascinating place. Heard that the water is so clear that looking over the edge of a boat you can see down for a mile so some people suffer from vertigo. Also, during the war between Russia and Japan in 1905? , a railway was built across the frozen lake to supply Russian troops to the Far East. The ice was so thick and long lasting it could support trains throughout the winter. Definitely on my bucket list.
If we cannot stop psychopaths and sociopaths from taking all the power in the world, we won't save it. Nothing we do really matter as long as a few people can just decide to undo everything or cause more polution then the rest of us combined. Turning your car off while you wait for someone is a nice gesture, but we need legislation against the big polluters.
Agreed, avoiding taking flights or using any type of combustion engine for transportation will only go so far. They'll still be used countless times despite our best efforts. Change needs to start from the top.
You're joking, right? You, the consumer, are the big polluter. You demand transportation, air conditioning, rechargeable batteries and cheap goods from China. Stop asking government for answers.
Bawahahaha!!! "Stop psychopaths and sociopaths from taking over the world"! That's what they DO, dingus! There are no world leaders that are not psychopathic, and there will never be!
One of the main characters in my book Vintage Wrath (Beware the Vengeance of a Patient Girl) is named Olivia. As I edit through it this time, I'm starting to see THIS Olivia... My character does have straight, dark hair and pale skin... her dad's Latino and mom's Japanese. That's not how I've ever seen her before (looking like Olivia Gordon). This is so weird! The book's already out but I'm just making little edits and double checking facts.
Good content, and would have been better with one of scishow's superior presenters, which is to say, everyone that isn't Ms. Gordon. Her voice and pacing is grating.
In Finland we have this thing called 'saimaannorppa.' Saimaa ringed seal in english. They are extremely endangered and can only be found in Lake Saimaa. Which is, by the way, Finlands biggest freshwater lake. ;)
