Lake Baikal is 2,000 kilometers away from the ocean, and its freshwater resources account for 20% of the world. Why is there marine life?

Lake Baikal, one of the purest lakes in the world. Lake Baikal in winter is even more yearning for its sapphire blue ice, and it is also the lake with the most fresh water resources in the world. However, there are still many marine life here, what is going on here? How did those sea creatures survive? Come see this mysterious lake today!

Where is Lake Baikal? If we open the world map, start from Inner Mongolia, cross the vast Mongolian desert in the north, and come to the south of Eastern Siberia, we will see a crescent-shaped lake, which is Lake Baikal. Lake Baikal is 636 kilometers long, with an average width of 48 kilometers, an area of ​​31,500 square kilometers, and the deepest point is 1,637 meters. The total water volume of Lake Baikal is 23.6 trillion cubic meters, accounting for 20% of the world's total fresh water resources. It is the lake with the largest fresh water reserves in the world, and it is also the deepest lake in the world. Speaking of the fresh water reserves of Lake Baikal, it has always been a topic that people talk about. Let's compare Lake Baikal with the Bohai Sea. The area of ​​the Bohai Sea is about 77,300 square kilometers. Its area is 2.45 times that of Lake Baikal. The water storage capacity of the Bohai Sea is far less than that of Lake Baikal. The water volume of the Bohai Sea is 1.73 One trillion cubic meters, the water volume of Lake Baikal is 13.6 times that of him.

What is this concept? In fact, not much, that is, more than eight times the total amount of fresh water in China, or 20% of the total fresh water in the world. Some scientists once estimated that the fresh water in Lake Baikal would be enough for 7.5 billion people to drink for 33 years, but this It doesn't mean that you can waste water, if you open your mind and want to. The major rivers of the world flow into Lake Baikal, and it takes a whole year to fill it. Why are there so many rivers in the world, but Lake Baikal has so much fresh water? This is mainly related to the high latitude, low temperature and small evaporation where he lives. The winter temperature around the lake area is extremely low, with an average of minus 38 degrees Celsius. The surface of Lake Baikal freezes from January to May, and the thickness of the ice layer is about 70 to 115 centimeters, which is safe enough for vehicles to drive on it. Fifty years ago, train tracks were even erected on the ice.

So how is fresh water formed? In fact, the seawater was salty 520 million years ago, so the lake water of Lake Baikal was also salty at that time, but because there were 336 rivers in Lake Baikal that poured in a lot of rainwater, the river water continued to flow into Lake Baikal, and the lake water It will gradually fade away, everyone. Here comes the most concerned topic, why are there abundant marine life in freshwater lakes? It is no exaggeration to say that there are more than 600 species of plants and 1200 species of animals in Lake Baikal, of which 1083 species are still rare in the world. Conchs, seals, etc. can live freely in Lake Baikal, especially sponges. There are sponges as high as 15 meters in Lake Baikal. They form an underwater jungle at the bottom of the lake.

In the sponge forest, Baikal lobsters are surviving and multiplying. Because the lake water is too cold, it is difficult for microorganisms to survive. The golden Baikal lobster is one of the few scavengers in the lake and a strange marine creature that lives in Lake Baikal. It has no fish scales, and the bones of the body are clearly visible. They do not lay eggs, but directly give birth to young. In addition, Lake Baikal also has a kind of wood fish, they are almost exactly the same as the whales in the ocean. Lake Baikal is home to the world's only freshwater seals, which enjoy group play, develop friendships, and also increase the chances of mullet being caught. Now we can catch about 5000 freshwater seals every year.

There are still many sturgeons in Lake Baikal. Unlike other sturgeons that live in coastal areas, the Baikal sturgeon has bowed to reality and has completely become a freshwater fish. Facing why there are marine organisms in Lake Baikal, scientists are also very puzzled. They can only start with the formation of Lake Baikal. Lake Baikal is located at the junction of the Eurasian plate and the Amur plate. It is a typical continental rift lake, so its formation is mainly affected by crustal movement.

What is crustal movement? It is affected by the mantle material, and under the heat convection from the mantle, the plate moves in the opposite direction. Canyons, lakes, and even oceans can form between these two plates. Therefore, scientists speculate that about 20 million years ago, the Eurasian plate and the Indian Ocean plate collided with each other, and the Eurasian plate was ruthlessly torn open a wide and deep wound, but Lake Baikal was strong enough to survive. The rivers and glaciers continue to absorb energy, enrich the lake basin, and form the current lake during the long evolution process, and have won the honorary title of Siberian Blue Eyes.

But later, there are materials to prove that the Lake Baikal area has been land for a long time, and Lake Baikal is a fault lake formed during crustal fracturing activities, so it also denies the claim that the marine life of Lake Baikal is a regressive species. The Earth Expansion theory holds that after the formation of the Earth 4.6 billion years ago, water vapor in the air condensed into water droplets and splashed back to the surface to form oceans. At this time, the Earth was covered by oceans. 520 million years ago, due to a major earthquake on the earth, the seawater flowed into the cracks in the crust, and the continents were gradually revealed, while some marine organisms stayed in the lakes in the low-lying areas of the continents. The seawater was salty 520 million years ago, so the lake water of Lake Baikal was also salty, but due to a large amount of rainwater and river water continuously flowing into Lake Baikal, the lake water gradually became thinner.

In order to better adapt to the overall environment, marine organisms have evolved and evolved. But on the way of development and evolution, most organisms cannot adapt to the change of osmotic pressure, and only a very small number of winners have undergone correct evolution, and finally they slowly reproduced and survived in Lake Baikal.

As a result, the strange phenomenon that marine organisms live in freshwater lakes is now caused. We have to say that Lake Baikal is an excellent work of nature. When countless rivers converge here, they also create a unique spectacle, and finally flow to the distant Arctic Ocean.