Team IX presented on Lake Baikal in Russia as a potential wonder of the world. Some key facts included: - Lake Baikal is the oldest and deepest lake in the world, containing 20% of the world's fresh water. - It has extremely high biodiversity, with over 80% of species found nowhere else. - The team outlined 51 reasons why Lake Baikal deserves recognition, focusing on its age, size, biodiversity, beauty, and cultural and geological significance.

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2. Team IX Presented By: Parakram Srikanth Sidraj Desaigouda Anuj Presented By:

4. Currency- Rubles

5. Russia's 160 ethnic groups speak some 100 languages

7. citizens by the Constitution, and has a literacy rate of 99.4%

9. Team IX presents the 51 reasons why Lake Baikal should be one of the wonders of the world……… Presented By:

10. Lake Baikal Presented By: Parakram

11. Lake Baikal is “The Blue Eye of Siberia” Presented By:

12. Lake Baikal is “The Pearl of Russia” Presented By:

13. Lake Baikal is the “Australia of fresh waters.” Presented By:

14. Lake Baikal is “Russia's natural jewel” Presented By:

15. Lake Baikal is “The soul of Siberia” Presented By:

16. Books on Baikal…… Phytoplankton Pigments in Lake Baikal : Susanne Fetu Presented By:

17. Books on Baikal…… Around the Sacred Sea: Mongolia and Lake Baikal on Horseback Presented By:

18. Books on Baikal…… Protecting Lake Baikal: Environmental Policy Making in Russia's Transition Presented By:

19. Books on Baikal…… Alla Tsybikova Presented By:

20. Books on Baikal…… Baikal: Sacred Sea of Siberia Presented By:

21. Books on Baikal…… Matrilineal affinities and prehistoric Siberian mortuary practices: a case study from Neolithic Lake Baikal Presented By:

22. Books on Baikal…… Sacred Sea: A Journey to Lake Baikal Presented By:

23. Books on Baikal…… Lake Baikal: Marc Di Duca Presented By:

24. Books on Baikal…… Equilibrium-line altitudes on reconstructed LGM glaciers of the northwest Barguzinsky Ridge, Northern Baikal, Russia Presented By:

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27. The 51 reasons……….. Lake Baikal is the great grand daddy of world’s lakes At more than 25 million years old it is the oldest lake in the world four hundred miles (636 km) long and almost fifty miles (80 km) wide, lies almost one quarter of the all the fresh water on earth--Lake Baikal Baikal is easily the largest lake in Eurasia, and it is just as easily the deepest lake in the world (1,620 meters) Baikal is so large that all of the rivers on earth combined would take an entire year to fill it Presented By: Srikanth

28. The 51 reasons………..contd the lake is renowned as one of earth's most impressive natural wonders The bottom of this lake is 1280 meters below sea level, one may think it is that deep but not; seven km deep mud (sediments accumulated in its bottom occupy that depth –about 7 km It contains 31494 sq km of fresh water, even the water of the great five lakes of US put together, it would not equal the Baikal water Presented By: Srikanth

29. The 51 reasons………..contd Lake Baikal has 22 islands of which Olkhon is the largest; it has the credit of being the fourth largest lake island in the world Though Olkhon is a lake island; it has all the geographies of a big continent, a small desert, steppes, taiga regions, its own lakes, high mountains and everything a continent can have but a sea It has 330 rivers flowing in to it from various surrounding Baikal Mountains & only one river to drain the water out the Angara River. Presented By: Sidraj

30. The 51 reasons………..contd 80% of the life around Lake Baikal is not found anywhere else in the world. Experts claim that eventually lake Baikal will divide Asia and create a new ocean There are only 2 continental rift valleys remaining in the world which are active, Baikal rift region is one among them Presented By: Sidraj

31. The 51 reasons………..contd The lake is walled in by mountains, extensions of the Sayan Mountains Lake Baikal is the world's second most voluminous lake It is the most voluminous freshwater lake in the world with an average depth of 744.4 m (2,442 ft) The lake was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996 Presented By: Sidraj

32. The 51 reasons………..contd Unlike all other deep lakes of the world in which the lower depths are dead, poisoned by hydrogen sulphide and other gases, here the entire thickness is rich in oxygen The second wonder is Baikal's living waters! Anyone coming to the shores of this glorious Siberian Sea is amazed by its transparency Lake Baikal is a surprising and unique natural laboratory where one can study the life in abyssal fresh waters Baikal is the world’s most important reserve of clean fresh water. The lake holds 20 per cent of global fresh water reserves (23 billion tones) Presented By: Sidraj

33. The 51 reasons………..contd Trans-Siberian railway was built around the lake between 1896 and 1902 required 200 bridges and 33 tunnels as the entire lake is surrounded by mountains In the summer, its crystalline blue waters are transparent to a depth of forty meters In the winter Baikal freezes over, with ice so thick that the Trans-Siberian Railway was briefly run over its surface. Baikal acts like a large thermo-stabilizer Presented By: Desaigouda

34. The 51 reasons………..contd Baikal is one of the stormiest lakes, with an average of 18 stormy days in a month compared to 3 on the black sea and 4 on the azov sea The ice on Baikal is a unique phenomenon. Its vast fields are so transparent that the bottom and its inhabitants can seen Baikal ice was so thick that during the Russo-Japanese war, the railway track was laid straight over the ice, which made it possible to haul 2,300 carriages and 65 locomotives across the water by horse traction over a period 17 days. Presented By: Desaigouda

35. The 51 reasons………..contd New varieties and species of organisms are continuously developing in the lake The development of the crustacean in Baikal is most extraordinary, especially the amphipods that account for about 300 species in the lake, a third of all the gammarids known in the world There are 56 species of fish inhabiting Lake Baikal they are represented in Baikal by 32 species, 29 of which are endemic. Presented By: Desaigouda

36. The 51 reasons………..contd There are more than 2600 species. There are varieties of animals and over 1000 species of plants in Baikal. About 40% of the plants and 85% of animal species inhabiting in Baikal are endemic It contains 848 native species of animals unique to the lake and 133 species of likewise unique plants These high oxygen concentrations enable a much wider variety of plants and animals to thrive in depths that would otherwise be inhospitable to life Presented By: Anuj

37. The 51 reasons………..contd In the middle of the last century the well-known Baikal researcher, Benedict Dybovsky, left the corpse of a wild animal on the ice and a day later found a skeleton so cleanly picked that it could be put straight into a museum as an exhibit. This crayfish is only one and a half millimeters in length, but within less than one square meter of the lake's surface scientists have counted up to three million of them Nature here has worked so hard and with such fantasy that the whole two thousand kilometer shoreline of the glorious sea presents a unity of landscape of striking and inimitable beauty. It seems as if Nature here was competing with itself, was trying not to repeat itself. Presented By: Anuj

38. The 51 reasons………..contd Annually, the ground seismic stations register up to 2,000 earthquake tremors an area of land of about 200 square kilometers sank under water to a depth of 2 meters as the result of an earthquake whose magnitude reached magnitude 11 The lake's huge water mass gives it certain features of a seashore climate It is an outstanding example representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms Presented By: Anuj

39. It contains the most important and significant natural habitats for the conservation of biological diversity including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value It is an outstanding example representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals To contain superlative phenomena or area of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance The 51 reasons………..contd Presented By: Anuj

40. The 51 reasons………..contd The fringing mountains rise steeply to a maximum height of 8,445 ft Lake Baikal is furthermore the only confined fresh water lake in which direct and indirect evidence of gas hydrates exists This remarkable lake is a one of Asia’s holy places. Peoples through over the centuries prayed to the lake and believed in its power Within Baikal’s watershed there are 3 separate Russian states and 1 Autonomous Region; 12 Mongolian states; over 45 national parks; strict nature reserves and significant cultural sites in both regions; not to mention over 25 Russian and 116 Mongolian counties. Presented By: Anuj

41. Presented By: Thank You…….