The biggest freshwater lake in the world on water volume – Lake Baikal in Siberia. Lake Superior in North America is the widest than freshwater lakes of the world more Lake Baikal on the area, but it concedes to Baikal on the volume of water and depth.
The biggest storage of fresh water on the planet Earth
Lake Baikal not only the most volume lake. It the deepest and one of the most ancient. Baikal is in the deepest cleft on the surface of the planet. This cleft - the most difficult and least clear fault zone of earth crust. Depth of the lake averages 745 meters, and the deepest point reaches a point of 1637 meters. The lake stretches for 636 km, and its width reaches 80 km. The surface of the lake makes 31,000 sq.km.
This ancient lake arose as a result of tectonic shifts 20-30 million years ago. Fresh and clear water in the lake remains thanks to two factors. First, the endemic the Baikal epishura – the microscopic crustacean filtering a huge number of seaweed and bacteria lives in it. Besides, the most part of a watershed of Lake Baikal is supported by rocky breeds. Thus, inflow of water on the way to the lake almost does not adjoin to deposits and mineral substances. This oligotrofny lake, and water in it has great drinking qualities.
365 rivers among which Yenisei is the largest river of Siberia flow into Baikal. The lake contains 20% of a reserve of fresh water on the Earth's surface. The volume of fresh water in the lake is 26,000 cubic kilometers. The ancient reservoir is considered one of the cleanest in the world. The water extracted from lake depths can be drunk without preliminary processing. In the winter the lake freezes and becomes covered with ice.
The most oligotrofny lake of the world
Lake Superior relating to the system of freshwater lakes in North America is the biggest on water surface area the freshwater lake of the world. Its surface occupies 82,170 sq.km. It contains so much water how many in all Great Lakes combined: 11,600 cubic kilometers. The reserve of fresh water of the lake makes 10% of all stock for the surfaces of the planet Earth.
The unusual natural occurrence – snow effect of the lake when winter cold air over a warm water surface is saturated with steam is connected with Lake Superior, turns into clouds, and then precipitation in the form of snow drops out.
The amount of water in the lake is enough to flood North and South America on depth of 30 cm. The deepest mark in the lake makes 400 m. To Lake Superior more than 300 rivers and streams are flown down. If to stretch the coastline of the lake on a straight line, then it could connect the Bahamas and Duluth, the city in the State of Minnesota, the USA. On average the transparency of water in the lake reaches 8 meters in depth. This the cleanest and transparent of the Great Lakes and the most oligotrofny lake of the world. Length of the lake reaches 563 km, and width of 257 km. In the summer the sun on the west bank of the lake is rolled up for 35 minutes later, than on its southeast coast.
The biggest lake of the world on the area – Caspian Sea. But it is not freshwater. The salinity of water in it is about a third of salinity of water in the seas of the planet.
Lake Superior – one of the youngest lakes of the world. To it only 10,000 years.