ICDP Proposal Abstract
© ICDP, the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, 1996-2023 - www.icdp-online.org
Baikal Drilling Project
Asia, Russia, Siberia, Lake Baikal
Revised
Full-proposal: ICDP-1997/08
For the funding-period starting 1997-01-15
For the funding-period starting 1997-01-15
Abstract
Lake Baikal is well-known as a magnificent sedimentary basin located in the central part of
the Baikal Rift Zone (BRZ). The BRZ is known as one of the world’s two most active
continental rift zones and a prime location for understanding fundamental processes involved
in continental rifting and the evolution of lacustrine rift basins. Located in south-central
Siberia, just north of the Mongolian border, Lake Baikal is ideally positioned to test important
paleoclimate as well as tectonic models for several reasons:
The climate of the Baikal region has the highest degree of continentality of any continent,
This region has experienced mountain glaciation during the Pleistocene but not the
massive continental ice sheets which disturbed the sedimentary records of the Great
Laurentian Lakes of North America, and other lakes of northern Europe and northwestern
Siberia.
Seasonal energy balance models have shown that this continental interior exhibits the
highest degree of response to Milankovitch insolation variations.
The Baikal Rift Zone has a direct geo-genetic linkage to the tectonic evolution of Asia
during the Cenozoic, particularly the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau. Continental scientific
drilling of the Lake Baikal rift basin sediments, therefore, is essential for realizing the
mutual goals of reconstructing the long-term paleoclimatic history of Central Asia and
understanding the geologic history of the Baikal Rift Zone.
An eight-year investment in developing a multi-national infrastructure and scientific data
base, including excellent multi-channel seismic and multi-proxy calibration data, is being
realized through publications and special presentations.
Results from previous drilling and multichannel seismic surveys demonstrate that
numerous sites exist in Lake Baikal for recovery of continuous hemipelagic lacustrine
sediments, that a robust geochronology can be developed for the Late Cenozoic at these
sites, that these sediments exhibit high sensitivity to rapid paleoclimate and tectonic
events, and that these sediments contain multiple proxies for resolving high resolution
paleoclimate records.
Scientific Objectives
- (No objectives found in database. Record is incomplete and needs some manual curation)
Keywords
BAIKAL,
BDP,
Cenozoic,
Climate Change,
Global Environment,
ICDP-1997/08,
Lake Baikal,
Lake Drilling,
Russia,
Siberia,
Tectonic Evolution
Location
Latitude:
52.51805
,
Longitude:
106.15305
© ICDP, the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, 1996-2023