Irkutsk scientists continue to study Lake Baikal bottom in detail using a multibeam echo sounder, used on the lake for the first time. It revealed the relief in the deepest areas and found two new mud volcanoes in the southern basin. Based on these data, researchers will create a 3D map and model of Lake Baikal bottom, then better understand its past and future.

Irkutsk scientists continue to study the bottom of Lake Baikal and create its three-dimensional map. A multibeam echo sounder is a special device that will help study the lake’s underwater relief.
Scientists are heading to Baikal. They will have to study the lake’s underwater relief.
This device is being used on Baikal for the first time. The multibeam echo sounder is a sensitive instrument; it sees everything hidden beneath the water, even in the deepest places. As a result, not a single rise or depression of the lake will go unnoticed.
As the head of the Department of Radio Electronics and Telecommunication Systems at Irkutsk National Research Technical University, Alexander Chensky, says, a multibeam echo sounder has appeared on Baikal, which will make it possible in the future to do a lot of work, I hope, in scientific research. This device can be used to search for various underwater objects. And, in fact, for cartography.
The first studies of the bottom of Baikal began six years ago. Together with Belgian scientists, staff of the Limnological Institute carried out a detailed survey of the southern and central basins of the lake. It was only this year that it became possible to continue the research. Colleagues from the Japanese city of Kitami joined this plan, as well as colleagues from Irkutsk Technical University, who provided the expensive device.
— This is the southern part of Baikal. Purple is a depth of 1,200 meters. Red is a depth of 200 meters.
So what is the bottom of Baikal like? There are faults and plains there. The relief is complex, says geologist Oleg Khlystov. After covering thousands of kilometers, this time the scientists managed to discover two new mud volcanoes in the southern basin.
— Mud volcanoes are not as large as those in the oceans. They are quite shallow and flat. They are clearly visible in the relief, but only to our eyes. When specialists from the seas arrive, they say, well, this is not a mud volcano. Just a landslide, something collapsed. But when we extract gas hydrates, they believe us and agree that this is a new type of mud volcano. Let’s say, the Baikal type of mud volcanoes, says Oleg Khlystov, head of the Laboratory of Lake Baikal Geology at the Limnological Institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Relying on these data, scientists will be able to create a three-dimensional map of the bottom of Baikal. And then its model as well, thanks to which they will be able to look into the past and predict the lake’s future.
Only the northern part of Baikal remains unexplored. That is hundreds of square kilometers. The survey will take about two years. And after that, there will be no “blank spots” left on Baikal for scientists.