Talk:Lake Baikal

message: what happend to the lake baikal
:No worries, it's still here!  71.65.54.92 20:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Lake Baikal and whole Siberia is in it's greatest danger since soviet times. Russian business-oriented newspaper Kommersant posted 20th April 2012 an article about new russian government bill project of state-owned "Siberian corporation". Scandalous situation is in terms of operation of this new corporation. By the project this corporation will take under it's sole control 60% of all eastern russian territories (including region of Lake Baikal), will be above all international agreements and above domestic law jurisdiction, receive exclusive rights to acquire (public servitude) any public or private land for mining fossils, with direct rule of Russia President Vladimir Putin. Do we need to refer it? Article [use translator]: http://kommersant.ru/doc/1919404 Westsomething (talk) 14:13, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: comment

message: "Baikal is home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, two thirds of which can be found nowhere else in the world"
"Lake Baikal hosts 1,085 species of plants and 1,550 species and varieties of animals. Over 80% of animals are endemic."
The former is cited and in the intro; the latter is uncited and in the Geography and hydrography section.  Can anybody clarify?
Mouse (talk) 16:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Biodiversity Discrepancies

message: "At 1,637 meters (5,371 ft) with its body 1,285 meters (4,216 ft) below sea level, Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world by over 500 feet.["
Shouldn't the first numbers have 'deep' after them? And what do the second set of numbers mean? "Its body" is a thousand meters below sea level? Does that mean it extends that far?
GeneCallahan 11:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The writer meant that since the surface of the lake is 456 m above sea level, the deepest point in the lake is 1,285 m below sea level.  But since that point is made in the following section and doesn't seem to be a particularly "vital" statistic, I eliminated it from the intro.  Best, Eliezg 01:38, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing 

message: This article includes all measurements in both kilometers and miles.  For more standard internationalization, it should include information only in kilometers. Marcos Juárez 19:05, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That goes against Wikipedia's Manual of Style for units of measurement. We need to have both included in the article, otherwise we Americans will get confused. --Lethargy 01:22, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed changes

message: I tried to fix it all up. One link did not work, so I commented it out in the codeit is still there but hidden. I couldn't figure out where the links under References went. I put a few in the article but I was not convident about placement. Therefore, I left the whole list intact under References, even though I converted the first three to the Notes format. Please contact me about any problems or anything you want me to fix. Thanks!   Mattisse(talk) 01:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tried to make citation method consistent per tag at top of article 

message: In the second paragraph is states that Lake Baikal is the oldest lake in the world, while later it lists its age at 25-30 million years. However, in the article on the Caspian Sea it lists the age of that "lake" as 30 million years old. Perhaps it should be changed to "one of the oldest".
Also, later in the 2nd paragraph, it states that "Olkhon, by far the largest island in Lake Baikal, is the largest lake-bound island in the world.". However, it you check the article in Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, you will see that Manitoulin is a much larger island.
:Is that all verified with reliable sources, though? --Lethargy 21:31, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A few inconsistencies 

message: What is the meaning/significance of this statement?  If all the sediment were scoured from the lake, the water from above would replace the scoured sediment so the depth of the lake itself would not change.
I'm confused. Unschool 19:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The meaning seems to be that if all the sediments, but no water, were sucked up or dug out (how??), the body of water in the lake would sink down into the new and much deeper trench, and the actual depth of water would be roughly the same.. But I agree it's not any kind of valuable, or evenm scientific insight.83.254.151.33 (talk) 03:12, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sediment 

message: I heard once that Bay-kal actually means big lake in Turkish and it makes sense. Can someone familiar with Turkic languages confirm this? 85.99.161.82 09:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Meaning of the Name

message: Some references are old and doesn't exists (12 and 13)... 85.255.56.131 08:50, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: The section on geography and hydrography includes this passage:
The lake is completely surrounded by mountains. the Baikal Mountains on the north shore and taiga, is technically protected as a national park and contains 22 small islands, the largest, Olkhon (also spelled 'Olchon'), being 72km long.
This needs help.  The period after "mountains" is apparently misplaced but I'm not sure what's intended.  It's completely surrounded by mountains, those on the north shore being called the Baikal Mountains and the others not being specified?  There's taiga everywhere or just on the north shore?  Is it just the lake that's protected as a national park, or part of the shore as well?  (and maybe information about its legal status doesn't belong in this section at all)  What does "technically protected" mean?  There's a law on the books but some reliable source asserts that it's routinely overlooked? JamesMLane t c 16:19, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing passage 

message: In my opinion, a reference to the Baikal Neutrino Telescope should be added, which is located in the deep waters of the lake and which has been operating for quite some time already, producing interesting physics results.
Unfortunately, I am too lazy to do this now so perhaps somebody volunteers ?
GenghisDon (talk) 13:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Baikal Neutrino Telescope 

message: I see there are no External links so I did not add it. Just though I would add it here, in case anyone wanted to see a wonderful overview of the terrain. (Perhaps you already know about it.)  Regards, Mattisse 15:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  link to external photo of area 

message: Global warming scare: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/05/the-worlds-larg.html  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Altonbr (talk • contribs) 18:14, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Global Warming 

message: It's famous for holding a volume of water larger than that of all the great lakes combined.
The citations for this statement seem to me to suggest that Baikal has more volume than the North American Great Lakes, but does Baikal actually hold more water than all the world's "great lakes" (including, for example, the African Great Lakes), as the sentence above implies? Camillus 23:47, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The text refers almost certainly to the North American Great Lakes, and I removed the ambiguity accordingly.  Cheers, Eliezg (talk) 05:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: More than the [[Great Lakes]] or more than "all the great lakes"?

message: Also, I removed the following snippet:
:  Although there were muted protests, a wood pulp and cellulose processing plant was built at the south end of the lake (at Baykalsk). The plant still pours industrial effluent into Baikal's waters.  The overall impacts of watershed pollution on Baikal and similar watersheds are studied annually by the Tahoe-Baikal Institute, an exchange program between U.S., Russian, and Mongolian scientists and university graduate students started in 1990.
mostly because the material about the pulp-mill is covered elsewhere and the Tahoe-Baikal reference is borderline spammy, in in either case it didn't really belong in the "Geography" section.  But if anyone wants to revive it, there it is.  Best, Eliezg (talk) 05:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Snippet 

message: The map of Baikal in the box is high resolution and nice looking, but why is it in German?!  Perhaps someone can find an English language alternative.  Also: nowhere is there a map showing where Lake Baikal is located relative to the rest of the world, its position in Russia or proximity to Mongolia (though the well-informed visitor does get a good idea of its location relative to the "Republik Burjatien" and "Irkutsker Oblast").  Is there a geographical or mapmaking project or locus where such things can be requested?  Best, Eliezg (talk) 23:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Map

message: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,534960,00.html?mrp  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.207.244.4 (talk) 17:58, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Usual vacations time topic. They are talking about, but possible declassified documents are not accessible online. Words, words, words. Bogomolov.PL (talk) 07:00, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about a snippet on this? 

message: Under Geography and hydrography:
Olkhon is stated as being the fourth-largest lake-bound island in the world. However clicking on lake-bound island takes you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_in_lakes.
On that page Olkhon is listed as the third largest Island.
So which of the pages is correct?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Borga2000 (talk • contribs) 16:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Olkhon 

message: The lake cannot be 25 million years old and also be expanding at a consistent rate of 2cm a year. If calculated retroactively the lake would have been 500 kilometers narrower 25 million years ago (-25M x 2cm = -500km) that is 6.3x narrower than the current size of the 79km lake. By this calculation the lake could not be older than about 4 million years(25M / 6.3)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.29.150.229 (talk) 12:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Apples and oranges... 88.148.192.177 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 15:28, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opposing information on age and size 

message: The entire Russian exploration and conquest section needs citations badly.  There are no citations there and this anecdote is especially egregious:
(The story goes that the Buryats did not know how to use firearms, so they decided to burn the muskets along with the dead Cossacks. The fire caused the guns to go off, killing a few people which made the Buryats think that the Russians were still fighting after they were dead.)
Oneliketadow (talk) 16:56, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Especcially that real famous story of whole railroad car with gold bars which fallen to the bottom of the lake - was lost there by White Russian Army in the start of XXth century. Westsomething (talk) 05:11, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Russian exploration and conquest section needs citations badly 

message: This section states:
Although originally reported as being successful, they did not set a world record for the deepest fresh water dive, ...
This is ambiguous. The dive could have been succesful without setting a world record if its purpose was (partly) research. Perhaps it should state that the dive was successful even though it didn't set a record.203.97.52.178 (talk) 01:17, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Research - Purpose of 2008 Dives Is Unclear 

message: Widely-used titles similar to this should be included in the article; preferably in its introduction or first section.
Warmest Regards, :)—thecurran Speak your mind my past 11:34, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Great Blue Eye of Siberia 

message: "Average depth 744.4 m " and source, but I dddn't found any informations about Average depth in this source. --Piotr967 (talk) 11:42, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Great point. However the linked document lists volume and surface area and I believe average depth = volume / surface area. Perhaps we should add a note? — sligocki (talk) 00:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: How can the maximum depth (1642m) be less than the average depth (1700m)?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.232.11.3 (talk) 08:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Average depth 

message: "Since the water body was formed via tectonic activity, and not geomorphology, many experts believe that Lake Baikal is a misnomer, and that the body of water cannot technically be classed as a lake in the scientific sense of the word.[5][6]"
I'm removing this claim until it can be better backed up. For the following reasons:
1. I'm not aware of any definition of lake that say it can't be formed via tectonic activity. If there is one please provide it. 
2. Tectonic processes ARE a part of geomorphology. It doesn't make sense to say that it's not. 
3. "many experts" what experts? non of the links provided say anything about it not being a lake.
Lordrichie (talk) 18:47, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like that bit of nonsense was added by an Australian edu ip on Apr 13 and overlooked until now, thanks for catching that. Vsmith (talk) 21:17, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misnomer? 

message: I think it's worth adding this as a separate section in the article - about the incredible activity of the China directly related to Lake Baikal. Although China is very far from the lake - an interest of this state to the largest fresh water lake is suspicious, if not dangerous enough. I've read about two giant projects of China on the Lake Baikal - the first one was about construction of gigantic waterpipe from the lake to the border with China, which fortunately did not materialize and the second one project (which in discussion today) is to build a bottling plant on the lake to make fresh bottled water from the Baikal with delivery to China, all projects offered fully-paid by Chinese state and mostly offered only from the Chinese side. With such projects it is easy to calculate - how many days China will need to completely drank off the whole lake Baikal considering the population and medical standard of fresh water consumption by human? Westsomething (talk) 05:25, 6 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: C'mon, the Angara's average discharge is over 3,000 cubic meter per second, that's 1011 m3 = 1014 liters a year. So even if they were bottling a billion liters of water per year at that plant, that's merely 0.001% of what flows out of the lake over the same period. Even if they were talking about 200 billion liters per year - that's like a bottle of water per day for eveyone in China and Russia together - it would be only 2% of what flows out of the lake down the Angara and Yenisei and into the Arctic Ocean. They can always control the water flow rate as needed at the Irkutsk Dam. Thank God, it rains or snow every year in Siberia. Things such as watershed pollution (think mining, paper mills, or even slope erosion due to excessive logging) matter a lot more for the lake water than whatever amount of water a bottling plant could use. -- Vmenkov (talk) 04:18, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chinese behavior on Baikal lake 

message: We need to indicate Turkic name origins of Lage baykal=Baygöl, Bay=big/deep/rich Göl=Lake  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ismet11 (talk • contribs) 04:06, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I have done so. The history of the Turkic name is now in the article.--Khanate General ☪ | talk |  help Project Mongol Conquests  15:29, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Turkic name of Lage baykal=Baygöl, Bay=big/deep/rich Göl=Lake  

message: The problem as I saw it that there were too many photos running (mostly) down the left that were essentially decorative. They didn't match the text they were near. Although it's not an iron rule or anything, IMO it's better if images match (and ideally help to elucidate) the nearby text. There were a lot of photos, but that itself is not problem as there's a wealth of visual information to convey here. 
So after consolidating the separated history sections, I swapped some photos for others and made three galleries. I know that this is slightly non-standard and that some people don't like galleries but this was my idea for the best solution. As I say there's lots of info here that's best shown visually. Regarding the general gallery at the end, yes there is a Commons category which theoretically could obviate that, but the category is quite large (with fair amount of dross) and finding useful stuff there is hard, so I picked what I figured might be some representative pictures for the more casual reader. (There are still two photos out of place -- the lake in winter and the lake in summer, in the environmental dangers section, but meh.)
Anybody who doesn't agree with any of this, we can talk, or you can change any of it or redact it all and then talk. Herostratus (talk) 01:42, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Here's what I did 

message: Regarding this edit: Please see Drainage basin and see the watershed map of the Yenisei River basin to the left of the infobox in the Baikal article. Note tributaries inflowing to the lake from Mongolia. This is part of the lake's drainage area.
The infobox parameter 'basin_countries' is intended to list countries that are part of the lake's drainage basin. It is not talking about the location of the lake itself. Personally I think the parameter is over used, but in this case it is used properly and supplies the reader with additional information, though it is easily vulnerable to misinterpretation as the recent changes have made all too clear. --RacerX11 Talk to meStalk me  14:16, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Basin countries 

message: Dated, but still useful for historical purposes:
* .
* .
Also, given the way Wikipedia works, entire sections of this article were probably lifted from Kropotkin & Bealby's EB11 article anyway and need attribution... — LlywelynII 12:06, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources for future article expansion

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: Hi, I just want to check that Baikalsky Priboi, though romanized as Baikalskiy (байкальский), is actually Baikalsky Priboi. If it is, could someone make the change? Also, if appropriate, could someone add 'meaning Baikal Surf in English' in brackets, please (after Baikalskiy Priboi)? Thanks a lot for your time!
79.66.165.180 (talk) 19:52, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling Check 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
* 
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 16:06, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion 

message: fix it  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4126:F428:7914:3CF6:BAC8:EE29 (talk) 19:33, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: ''unnecessarily long phrasing'': '''etymologically meaning, in Mongolian''' vs '''meaning in Mongolian'''

message: Apparently there is a myth of a sea-monster in lake Baikal called Lusud-Khan. Strange there's no mention of it in the article, shouldn't it be included? VenomousConcept (talk) 22:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a lot of urban legends and myths surrounding the lake, none of which are mentioned in any capacity as far as I can tell. I'm guessing most of the stories are circulating in "less official" sources.--Amelia-the-comic-geek (talk) 19:42, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lusud-Khan