This unique lake has always been an area of great debate among scientists.
Experts are still unable to determine the exact age of the lake - supposedly 25-35 million years. This is a mystery since lakes exist for about 10-15 thousand years and then turn into a swamp or dry out completely. However, the lake is not aging - on the contrary, researchers note that the process of formation of the unique place is not yet finished.
The banks of the lake diverge at a rate of 2 cm per year. For this reason many experts hypothesize that Baikal is a nascent ocean.
Another widely-discussed theory suggests that the lake could be relatively young. And there is evidence that confirms it. After studying the material composition of the sediments and physicochemical processes in them, the researchers came to the conclusion that the shoreline of the lake is about 8000 years old, while the lake's deep-water area is about 150,000 years old.
The lake has been known to local peoples since ancient times. However, information about him got to Europe quite late. The first mentions in the chronicles belong only to the second century. The full description of the lake was made in general only in 1773 by Alexei Pushkarev.
