Circles in Thin Ice, Lake Baikal, Russia

mudra · 06-24-2009, 09:27 PM

Late in April 2009, astronauts aboard the International Space Station observed a strange circular area of thinned ice in the southern end of Lake Baikal in southern Siberia. Siberia is remote and cold; ice cover can persist into June. The upper image, a detailed astronaut photograph, shows a circle of thin ice (dark in color, with a diameter of about 4.4 kilometers); this is the focal point for ice break up in the very southern end of the lake. A sequence of MODIS images indicates that the feature was first visible on April 5, 2009.

Baikal contained another, very similar circle near the center of the lake above a submarine ridge that bisects the lake (ice circles are indicated by arrows in the lower MODIS image from April 20). Both circles are visible through April 20, 2009. Clouds cover the center of the lake until April 24, at which point the circular patch of thin ice was becoming a hole of open water. Similar circular ice patterns—although not nearly as distinct—have been documented in the same central area of the lake in April 1994 (during the STS-59 Shuttle mission) and in 1985 (during the STS-51B Shuttle mission).

While the origin of the circles is unknown, the peculiar pattern suggests convection (upwelling) in the lake’s water column. Ice cover changes rapidly at this time of year. Within a day, the ice can melt almost completely and freeze again overnight. Throughout April, the circles are persistent: they appear when ice cover forms, and then disappear as ice melts. The pattern and appearance suggest that the ice is quite thin. The features were last observed in MODIS images on April 27, 2009.

What can cause convection, bringing warmer waters to the surface? Hydrothermal activity and high heat flow have been observed in other parts of the lake, but the location of this circle near the southern tip, over relatively deep water, is puzzling.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=38721

Some ideas of what might be going on there ?

Kindness
mudra

Dantheman62 · 06-25-2009, 12:26 AM

Thanks mudra, cool pictures! Lake Baikal has a lot of weird things about it.

Just another interesting bit of info.

At 1,637 meters (5,370 ft), Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world, and the largest freshwater lake in the world by volume.

Lake Baikal was formed in an ancient rift valley and therefore, is long and crescent-shaped with a surface area (31,494 km2/12,160 sq mi), less than that of Lake Superior or Lake Victoria. 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 and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.At more than 25 million years old, it is the oldest lake in the world.
A Russian mini-submarine attempting to set a record for the deepest freshwater dive on July 29, 2008, was originally reported as being successful, but a correction later emerged that reported the MIR I failed to do so, reaching a depth of only 1,580 meters.

Lake Baikal has more water than all of North America's Great Lakes combined — 23,600 cubic kilometers (5,700 cu mi), about one fifth of the total surface fresh water on the earth. However, in surface area, it is exceeded by the much shallower Great Lakes, Superior, Huron and Michigan, in North America, as well as by the relatively shallow Lake Victoria in East Africa.Known as the "Galápagos of Russia", its age and isolation have produced some of the world's richest and most unusual freshwater fauna, which is of exceptional value to evolutionary science.

Lake Baikal is in a rift valley, created by the Baikal Rift Zone, where the crust of the earth is pulling apart.

The bottom of the lake is 1,371 meters (4,500 ft) below sea level, but below this lies some 7 kilometers (4.3 mi) of sediment, placing the rift floor some 8–9 kilometers (more than 5 miles) below the surface: the deepest continental rift on Earth. In geological terms, the rift is young and active—it widens about two centimeters per year. The fault zone is also seismically active; there are hot springs in the area and notable earthquakes every few years. It drains into the Angara tributary of the Yenisei.

Its age is estimated at 25–30 million years, making it one of the most ancient lakes in geological history. It is unique among large, high-latitude lakes, in that its sediments have not been scoured by overriding continental ice sheets. U.S. and Russian studies of core sediment in the 1990s provide a detailed record of climatic variation over the past 250,000 years. Longer and deeper sediment cores are expected in the near future. Lake Baikal is furthermore the only confined fresh water lake in which direct and indirect evidence of gas hydrates exists.

Lake Baikal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal

31,494 square kilometers= surface area
23,600 cubic kilometers= volume
636 kilometers= length
79 kilometers= width
1,637 meters=depth
20 million years
(in present state: 2-3 million years)= age

Orion11 · 06-25-2009, 12:49 AM

wow! that place is amazinG!!!

beauty beauty beauty!!

interesting pics, thanks!

judykott · 06-25-2009, 02:01 AM

Fantastic thread Mudra, and great information Dantheman. I will ponder the circles and see if I can come up with any ideas as to what they could be, just have wild speculations at this point,

mudra · 06-25-2009, 08:30 AM

According to the survey data, ring structures on the Baikal ice are not formed every year: after first detection, such forms were detected in April 2003 and 2005. In 2004, 2006 and 2007 such occurrences were not registered. However, in 2008 these rings appeared in two parts of the lake basin: near Krestovsky cape (a bit to the south-west of the location of 1999, 2003 and 2005 rings) and for the first time near Turka village. In April 2009 these enigmatic forms were detected to the west of the cape Nizhneye Izgoloviye of the Saint Nose peninsular and in the south end of the Lake Baikal.

Reasons and mechanism of ring formations on ice have not been studied in details yet. Presumably, rings formation has something to do with methane natural gas blowouts from the multi-kilometer sedimentary formation of the Baikal bed. Please be reminded that Baikal was formed in an ancient rift valley and continental rifts are characterized by an increased thermal flow and seismic activity, whereas the rift valleys – by a thick formation of sedimentary rocks, where a lot of organic matter is accumulated. Increased thermal field and temperature gradient stipulate an intensive gas generation. Whereas natural gas seepages from the lake bottom are detected by the surfacing bubbles in summer and creation of “polynya” (water openings in ice) from half a meter to hundreds of meters in cross section in winter times.

- However, gigantic dark rings on Baikal ice are of extremely large size, - explain Rosgeolfund specialists. – Probably, such formations are due to seismic activities and tectonic movements within the Baikal rift system.

There is an opinion that in order to explain this mystic phenomenon, it is required to study the point heat source system on the lake bed. In this case “emissions” of heat source, coming up, may result in the creation of rings. According to other versions, it is important to look into the impact of atmospheric and biogenic processes and events to find the reason.

The mystery of circular formations on the Baikal ice is still unraveled. Study of this unique phenomenon using space images will probably soon allow detecting the exact cause of such rings formations in different parts of the lake water area.

More information about this mysterious phenomenon will be available at the 4th International Conference “Earth from Space – the Most Effective Solutions” that will take place on December 2009 at the Moscow Region Vatutinki recreation center of the Russian President Administration.

http://www.scanex.ru/en/news/News_Pr...p?id=n24767232

mudra · 06-25-2009, 08:35 AM

Mysterious Lake Baikal Ice Circles Visible On Google Maps!

In a recent Wired article, I read about a circular region of melted ice that ISS astronauts spotted from space in a Siberian lake. It's almost certainly caused by some upwelling of heat from the Earth's crust, however no one really knows what's going on. For grins, I went and checked out the Google Maps sat view of the region and it's not during the winter. Instead, it shows lots of dark blue water. But when I took a screenshot and ran it through The Gimp's "Colors -> Auto -> Equalize" filter, I got the picture to the right, showing that the region appears in a slightly different color, even when the ice is melted! This is probably due to differences in dissolved gasses or salinity caused by the heat, but I'm no geologist, so I'm not sure. It's just interesting that Google Maps has had this data all along and no one knew.

You'll notice a region to the lower right that is a very different color of blue. It looks like this is a seam between two different sources of images. That's where a more detailed set of (probably aerial) photos begin. The main region is a lower-rez and probably older set of photos that I believe were from the original satellite images that Google Maps began with.

Update 2009-05-27: Similar features can be seen around the northern circle that was identified in the Wired article, when using the Google Maps images. However, much more telling is the fact that the location pictured above was the epicenter of a magnitude 6.2 earthquake late last year. I think that makes it fairly likely that this is a geothermally active area and that the circles could indicate escaping gasses or related events.

http://essays.ajs.com/2009/05/myster...e-circles.html

mudra · 06-25-2009, 08:47 AM

A closer look to this wonderfull lake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAG1HOmlBng&feature=fvw

Kindness
mudra

Gemeos · 06-25-2009, 11:15 AM

Wow, Thanks mudra for this excellent information, and thank you Dan for the extra data!

So many wonderful things happen worldwide... and I'm here, stuck with piles of stuff to do...

Thank You for an excellent break!

Love and Respect

Gemeos

mudra · 06-26-2009, 10:54 PM

Recent Circles & Rings Discovered in Ice, Clouds
and Radar Returns Raise Serious Questions.
By Colin Andrews

In view of the first recorded evidence of this kind,
suggestive of a heating taking place in ice sufficient to
melt the thin ice into rings, I think its prudent to take
another look at other strange 'circular' effects recorded
in recent times - that is, apart from simple crop circles
and crop rings appearing around the world.

Is it conceivable that high levels of radiation coming
into our atmosphere are responsible ? Solar radiation
entering the 'broken' atmosphere through holes in the
Ozone layer or the rips in the magnetic field, now
confirmed to have occurred by NASA.

Are they evidence of weather modification experiments
generated by US and Russian projects like HAARP in
Alaska, or The WOODPECKER, in Russian?

I think there are grounds here to ask these questions.

Below is one frame taken of from a series that captured
radar returns operated by the US National Weather
Service during 1999 and shows a geometry formed by
either low level clouds which have taken on that form or
according to the met people Ive approached in the US
and UK, incomplete radar data.

There have been many reports of other circular
changes in existing cloud cover (See also Connecticut
in Eastern USA during 2007). Some of them are likely
caused by freezing nuclei triggering a fall out of super
cooled water droplets when they freeze suddenly as ice
when aircraft pass through such clouds. Such an
effect can also be produced by aircraft dumping fuel.
But we don't have all the explanations for each report
and so its wise to keep the data and watch to see if
patterns appear as time passes - those patterns might
now be forming.

"Without appearing alarmist, I ask the questions,
are these the first visible effects of the secret
projects called HAARP and Woodpecker? Are
they indications that we are winning the battle to
save our planet by government run weather
modification programs? or are they signs that we
are loosing it? We simply cant know YET. What is
sure is that they must mean something because
nature as we know her does not create such
phenomenon as far as we know or does she".

Scientists responding to mounting questions about
these ice circles have said that they are caused by
swirling methane creating warm rising currents. This
however would not be an explanation for the cloud
circles or radar returns IF indeed it is the answer to the
ice circles themselves.

read more here:
http://www.colinandrews.net/OtherCircles.html

06-24-2009, 09:27 PM	#1
mudra Avalon Spiritual Mother Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: belgium Posts: 4,919	Circles in Thin Ice, Lake Baikal, Russia Late in April 2009, astronauts aboard the International Space Station observed a strange circular area of thinned ice in the southern end of Lake Baikal in southern Siberia. Siberia is remote and cold; ice cover can persist into June. The upper image, a detailed astronaut photograph, shows a circle of thin ice (dark in color, with a diameter of about 4.4 kilometers); this is the focal point for ice break up in the very southern end of the lake. A sequence of MODIS images indicates that the feature was first visible on April 5, 2009. Baikal contained another, very similar circle near the center of the lake above a submarine ridge that bisects the lake (ice circles are indicated by arrows in the lower MODIS image from April 20). Both circles are visible through April 20, 2009. Clouds cover the center of the lake until April 24, at which point the circular patch of thin ice was becoming a hole of open water. Similar circular ice patterns—although not nearly as distinct—have been documented in the same central area of the lake in April 1994 (during the STS-59 Shuttle mission) and in 1985 (during the STS-51B Shuttle mission). While the origin of the circles is unknown, the peculiar pattern suggests convection (upwelling) in the lake’s water column. Ice cover changes rapidly at this time of year. Within a day, the ice can melt almost completely and freeze again overnight. Throughout April, the circles are persistent: they appear when ice cover forms, and then disappear as ice melts. The pattern and appearance suggest that the ice is quite thin. The features were last observed in MODIS images on April 27, 2009. What can cause convection, bringing warmer waters to the surface? Hydrothermal activity and high heat flow have been observed in other parts of the lake, but the location of this circle near the southern tip, over relatively deep water, is puzzling. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=38721 Some ideas of what might be going on there ? Kindness mudra

06-25-2009, 12:26 AM	#2
Dantheman62 Avalon Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: So. Cal. U.S. Posts: 4,205	Re: Circles in Thin Ice, Lake Baikal, Russia Thanks mudra, cool pictures! Lake Baikal has a lot of weird things about it. Just another interesting bit of info. At 1,637 meters (5,370 ft), Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world, and the largest freshwater lake in the world by volume. Lake Baikal was formed in an ancient rift valley and therefore, is long and crescent-shaped with a surface area (31,494 km2/12,160 sq mi), less than that of Lake Superior or Lake Victoria. 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 and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.At more than 25 million years old, it is the oldest lake in the world. A Russian mini-submarine attempting to set a record for the deepest freshwater dive on July 29, 2008, was originally reported as being successful, but a correction later emerged that reported the MIR I failed to do so, reaching a depth of only 1,580 meters. Lake Baikal has more water than all of North America's Great Lakes combined — 23,600 cubic kilometers (5,700 cu mi), about one fifth of the total surface fresh water on the earth. However, in surface area, it is exceeded by the much shallower Great Lakes, Superior, Huron and Michigan, in North America, as well as by the relatively shallow Lake Victoria in East Africa.Known as the "Galápagos of Russia", its age and isolation have produced some of the world's richest and most unusual freshwater fauna, which is of exceptional value to evolutionary science. Lake Baikal is in a rift valley, created by the Baikal Rift Zone, where the crust of the earth is pulling apart. The bottom of the lake is 1,371 meters (4,500 ft) below sea level, but below this lies some 7 kilometers (4.3 mi) of sediment, placing the rift floor some 8–9 kilometers (more than 5 miles) below the surface: the deepest continental rift on Earth. In geological terms, the rift is young and active—it widens about two centimeters per year. The fault zone is also seismically active; there are hot springs in the area and notable earthquakes every few years. It drains into the Angara tributary of the Yenisei. Its age is estimated at 25–30 million years, making it one of the most ancient lakes in geological history. It is unique among large, high-latitude lakes, in that its sediments have not been scoured by overriding continental ice sheets. U.S. and Russian studies of core sediment in the 1990s provide a detailed record of climatic variation over the past 250,000 years. Longer and deeper sediment cores are expected in the near future. Lake Baikal is furthermore the only confined fresh water lake in which direct and indirect evidence of gas hydrates exists. Lake Baikal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal 31,494 square kilometers= surface area 23,600 cubic kilometers= volume 636 kilometers= length 79 kilometers= width 1,637 meters=depth 20 million years (in present state: 2-3 million years)= age

06-25-2009, 12:49 AM	#3
Orion11 Avalon Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 1,098	Re: Circles in Thin Ice, Lake Baikal, Russia wow! that place is amazinG!!! beauty beauty beauty!! interesting pics, thanks!

06-25-2009, 02:01 AM	#4
judykott Avalon Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Calgary, Canada Posts: 711	Re: Circles in Thin Ice, Lake Baikal, Russia Fantastic thread Mudra, and great information Dantheman. I will ponder the circles and see if I can come up with any ideas as to what they could be, just have wild speculations at this point,

06-25-2009, 08:30 AM	#5
mudra Avalon Spiritual Mother Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: belgium Posts: 4,919	Re: Circles in Thin Ice, Lake Baikal, Russia According to the survey data, ring structures on the Baikal ice are not formed every year: after first detection, such forms were detected in April 2003 and 2005. In 2004, 2006 and 2007 such occurrences were not registered. However, in 2008 these rings appeared in two parts of the lake basin: near Krestovsky cape (a bit to the south-west of the location of 1999, 2003 and 2005 rings) and for the first time near Turka village. In April 2009 these enigmatic forms were detected to the west of the cape Nizhneye Izgoloviye of the Saint Nose peninsular and in the south end of the Lake Baikal. Reasons and mechanism of ring formations on ice have not been studied in details yet. Presumably, rings formation has something to do with methane natural gas blowouts from the multi-kilometer sedimentary formation of the Baikal bed. Please be reminded that Baikal was formed in an ancient rift valley and continental rifts are characterized by an increased thermal flow and seismic activity, whereas the rift valleys – by a thick formation of sedimentary rocks, where a lot of organic matter is accumulated. Increased thermal field and temperature gradient stipulate an intensive gas generation. Whereas natural gas seepages from the lake bottom are detected by the surfacing bubbles in summer and creation of “polynya” (water openings in ice) from half a meter to hundreds of meters in cross section in winter times. - However, gigantic dark rings on Baikal ice are of extremely large size, - explain Rosgeolfund specialists. – Probably, such formations are due to seismic activities and tectonic movements within the Baikal rift system. There is an opinion that in order to explain this mystic phenomenon, it is required to study the point heat source system on the lake bed. In this case “emissions” of heat source, coming up, may result in the creation of rings. According to other versions, it is important to look into the impact of atmospheric and biogenic processes and events to find the reason. The mystery of circular formations on the Baikal ice is still unraveled. Study of this unique phenomenon using space images will probably soon allow detecting the exact cause of such rings formations in different parts of the lake water area. More information about this mysterious phenomenon will be available at the 4th International Conference “Earth from Space – the Most Effective Solutions” that will take place on December 2009 at the Moscow Region Vatutinki recreation center of the Russian President Administration. http://www.scanex.ru/en/news/News_Pr...p?id=n24767232

06-25-2009, 08:35 AM	#6
mudra Avalon Spiritual Mother Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: belgium Posts: 4,919	Re: Circles in Thin Ice, Lake Baikal, Russia Mysterious Lake Baikal Ice Circles Visible On Google Maps! In a recent Wired article, I read about a circular region of melted ice that ISS astronauts spotted from space in a Siberian lake. It's almost certainly caused by some upwelling of heat from the Earth's crust, however no one really knows what's going on. For grins, I went and checked out the Google Maps sat view of the region and it's not during the winter. Instead, it shows lots of dark blue water. But when I took a screenshot and ran it through The Gimp's "Colors -> Auto -> Equalize" filter, I got the picture to the right, showing that the region appears in a slightly different color, even when the ice is melted! This is probably due to differences in dissolved gasses or salinity caused by the heat, but I'm no geologist, so I'm not sure. It's just interesting that Google Maps has had this data all along and no one knew. You'll notice a region to the lower right that is a very different color of blue. It looks like this is a seam between two different sources of images. That's where a more detailed set of (probably aerial) photos begin. The main region is a lower-rez and probably older set of photos that I believe were from the original satellite images that Google Maps began with. Update 2009-05-27: Similar features can be seen around the northern circle that was identified in the Wired article, when using the Google Maps images. However, much more telling is the fact that the location pictured above was the epicenter of a magnitude 6.2 earthquake late last year. I think that makes it fairly likely that this is a geothermally active area and that the circles could indicate escaping gasses or related events. http://essays.ajs.com/2009/05/myster...e-circles.html

06-25-2009, 08:47 AM	#7
mudra Avalon Spiritual Mother Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: belgium Posts: 4,919	Re: Circles in Thin Ice, Lake Baikal, Russia A closer look to this wonderfull lake http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAG1HOmlBng&feature=fvw Kindness mudra

06-25-2009, 11:15 AM	#8
Gemeos Avalon Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Portugal Posts: 303	Re: Circles in Thin Ice, Lake Baikal, Russia Wow, Thanks mudra for this excellent information, and thank you Dan for the extra data! So many wonderful things happen worldwide... and I'm here, stuck with piles of stuff to do... Thank You for an excellent break! Love and Respect Gemeos

06-26-2009, 10:54 PM	#9
mudra Avalon Spiritual Mother Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: belgium Posts: 4,919	Re: Circles in Thin Ice, Lake Baikal, Russia Recent Circles & Rings Discovered in Ice, Clouds and Radar Returns Raise Serious Questions. By Colin Andrews In view of the first recorded evidence of this kind, suggestive of a heating taking place in ice sufficient to melt the thin ice into rings, I think its prudent to take another look at other strange 'circular' effects recorded in recent times - that is, apart from simple crop circles and crop rings appearing around the world. Is it conceivable that high levels of radiation coming into our atmosphere are responsible ? Solar radiation entering the 'broken' atmosphere through holes in the Ozone layer or the rips in the magnetic field, now confirmed to have occurred by NASA. Are they evidence of weather modification experiments generated by US and Russian projects like HAARP in Alaska, or The WOODPECKER, in Russian? I think there are grounds here to ask these questions. Below is one frame taken of from a series that captured radar returns operated by the US National Weather Service during 1999 and shows a geometry formed by either low level clouds which have taken on that form or according to the met people Ive approached in the US and UK, incomplete radar data. There have been many reports of other circular changes in existing cloud cover (See also Connecticut in Eastern USA during 2007). Some of them are likely caused by freezing nuclei triggering a fall out of super cooled water droplets when they freeze suddenly as ice when aircraft pass through such clouds. Such an effect can also be produced by aircraft dumping fuel. But we don't have all the explanations for each report and so its wise to keep the data and watch to see if patterns appear as time passes - those patterns might now be forming. "Without appearing alarmist, I ask the questions, are these the first visible effects of the secret projects called HAARP and Woodpecker? Are they indications that we are winning the battle to save our planet by government run weather modification programs? or are they signs that we are loosing it? We simply cant know YET. What is sure is that they must mean something because nature as we know her does not create such phenomenon as far as we know or does she". Scientists responding to mounting questions about these ice circles have said that they are caused by swirling methane creating warm rising currents. This however would not be an explanation for the cloud circles or radar returns IF indeed it is the answer to the ice circles themselves. read more here: http://www.colinandrews.net/OtherCircles.html