Mysterious Ice Circles Spotted In Lake Baikal

Astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) have spotted two mysterious 2.5mile wide dark circles in the ice of Russia's Lake Baikal in April 2009. Some aspects of “odd blemishes” that the astronauts noticed in April 2009 defy explanation and hence mysterious.

The circles on Baikal’s ice are not a new phenomenon obviously. Because of the huge size, it is practically impossible to see a ring standing on the ice or even from a mountain. The Russian government has ordered daily space monitoring of the Lake Baikal area in recent years, which prompted many of the satellite sightings.

According to observations, circle structures do not appear on Baikal’s ice every year. They were first discovered in 1999, then in 2003 and 2005. They mostly appear in April and change their location every time as compared with previous years. Now they were spotted at the southern edge of the lake while another was seen near the centre.

According to scientists, the two circles are the focal points for ice break-up, and may have been caused by methane emissions which created “upwelling” of warmer water that begins swirling in a circular pattern because of the Coriolis force.

"Once the water mass reaches the underside of the ice on the surface of the lake, the warm water melts the ice in a ring shape," said Marianne Moore, a marine ecologist at Wellesley College in Massachusetts who has spent much time studying Lake Baikal with Russian researchers.

The dark color of the circles is the result of thinning of the ice, which usually happens into June. Upwelling, the scientists say, is not unusual in some relatively shallow areas of the lake where hydrothermal activity has been detected, such as where the circle near the centre of the lake is located.

The interesting thing is that Lake Baikal is the largest (by volume) and deepest (5,400ft) fresh water lake on Earth. It is also one of the world’s oldest lakes aged between 25 to 30million years old. Sediment deposited on the bottom is up to 4.3miles deep. The lake contains rare fresh water seals and several species of fish found nowhere else on the planet.