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The lake is completely surrounded by mountains, technically protected as a national park and contains 22 small islands, the largest, Olkhon, being 72 kilometers long. The lake is fed by some 300 inflowing rivers, the six main ones being Selenga, the source of some of Baikal's pollution, Chikoy , Khiloh , Uda, Barguzin and Upper Angara, and is drained through a single outlet, the Angara River.
The bottom of the lake is 1285 m below sea level and is the deepest continental rift on the earth. Its volume — 23,000 km³ — is approximately equal to the total volume of the 5 Great Lakes of North America, or to about 20% of the total fresh water on the earth.
Baikal is a young rift lake, the rift widens about 2 centimeters a year. The fault zone is seismically active: there are hot springs in the area and notable earthquakes every few years.
Few lakes compete with Lake Baikal in biotic diversityBiodiversity or biological diversity is a neologism and a portmanteau word, from bio and diversity. It is the diversity of and in living nature. Diversity, at its heart, implies the number of different kinds of objects, such as species. However, defining. As many as 852 species and 233 varieties of algaThe algae (singular is alga comprise several different groups of living things that produce energy through photosynthesis. They are generally regarded as simple plants, and some are related to the higher plants. Others represent independent lines of evolue and 1550 species and varieties of animals inhabitate the lake; many of them are endemicThis article is about the ecological meaning of "endemic". See also endemic (epidemiology). Endemic in biology and ecology means exclusively native to a place or biota. It is in contrast to any one of several terms meaning "not native" (e. adventive, exot species. The world-famous Baikal Seal (Phoca sibirica), the only mammal living in the lake, is found throughout the whole area of the lake.
Muted protest about the establishment of a wood pulp and cellulose plant at the south end of the lake, at Baikalsk , first planned in 1957, originated ecological awareness among educated Russians, though not among the Soviet bureaucracy. The plant still pours industrial effluent into Baikal's waters.
Very little was known about Lake Baikal until work began on the Trans-Siberian railwayThe Trans-Siberian Railway or Trans-Siberian Railroad in Russian, or Transsibirskaya magistral', Transsib), built 1891- 1916, is a network of railways connecting European Russia with Russian Far East provinces. 2 kilometres (5,787 miles) and spanning 8 ti. The scenic loop encircling Lake Baikal required 200 bridges and 33 tunnels. At the same time ( 1896Events January 4 Utah is admitted as the 45th U. January 5 An Austrian newspaper reports that Wilhelm Rontgen discovered a type of radiation later known as X-rays. January 12 H. Smith takes the first X-ray photograph. January 18 The X-ray machine is exhib– 1902Events January-April January 28 The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, DC with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie. France, Loisy's L'evangile et l'Eglise which inaugurates the Modernist Crisis February 11 Police beat up universal suffrage) a large hydrogeographical expedition headed by F. Drizhenko produced the first detailed atlas of the contours of Baikal's depths.