Lake Baikal: the mysterious rift of fire at 900 fanthoms?

Lake Baikal is not only the deepest lake in the world (1,637 meters) — it is also the oldest freshwater lake. According to scientists, the lake is more than 25 million years old, and holds about 20% of the world’s surface freshwater. The world’s largest fresh water lake is mysteriously warming for unknown reasons and Dr. Lyubov, a Russian scientist, believes she knows why – climate change. Lyubov believes one of the world’s oldest bodies of water is intimately and inexplicably linked to changes going on in the environment which are accelerating the planet’s temperature. For example, her research team found that changes in Lake Baikal’s temperature varied along with monthly El Niño variations in the surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean thousands of miles away. The researchers also found connections between the jet stream and Lake Baikal. Changes in the jet stream’s strength and direction forecast seasonal changes in the lake by about three months. Overall they found the lake is also warming. The lake’s temperature even reflected decade-scale changes in the Earth’s speed of rotation.

Given Lake Baikal’s immense depth, we believe there can only be one thing capable of influencing the Southern Oscillation (El Niño) and impacting the planet’s rotation while contributing to the gradient rise in the Lake’s temperature and it is the most abundant viscous substance on planet Earth – it is magma. A rift is likely widening under the lake and though no volcanic activity has been specifically identified to date, hot springs are present both on land and deep under water. What is perhaps more well-known is the lake’s violent past seismic history. Multiple earthquakes shook the Lake Baikal region between December 30, 1861 and January 1, 1862, causing widespread panic and destruction, unleashing a tsunami of icy water that rolled over the Tsagan steppe, and left more than 200 square kilometers of land permanently underwater along with the homes and livestock of the Buriats who lived there. A 7.3 magnitude quake shook the lake in 2001 and a 6.3 quake struck at a depth of 10 km in 2008. Ice quakes were measured on the frozen surface of the lake by Russian scientists in 2008 and a 6.7 quake again struck the lake in September of 2010. Researchers have long theorized there may be a divergent plate boundary centered beneath Lake Baikal. To its west is the Eurasian Plate and to its east is the Amurian Plate which is moving away from the rift toward Japan at about 4 (maybe even up to 7) mm per year. GPS measurements indicate that the Amurian plate is slowly rotating counter-clockwise. We believe Lake Baikal will become more of a hazard zone as Earth-changes intensify.  –The Extinction Protocol

(c) Al Jazeera   Discovery News, Siberia’s Lake Baikal Feeling the Heat, 2011