Why study landscapes?
We all travel across natural landscapes and see their beauty. However, those landscapes also contain clues about past geologic events. Learning to see and interpret those clues makes seeing the landscapes all the more rewarding. This page takes you through an example of the landscapes near Lake Baikal and the story that they tell. Why Lake Baikal? Russia’s Lake Baikal is the world’s deepest lake, with a depth of more than 1,600 meters or 5250 feet. As a USGS fact sheet points out, Lake Baikal’s depth and size make it the world’s largest freshwater lake, with about one fifth of the world’s total surface fresh water. That means Lake Baikal contains as much water as the five Great Lakes put together. Target audience: Teachers and instructors looking for earth-science exercises and projects, anyone interested in landscapes and geology, or anyone who enjoys exercising their eyes and brain. Overview of the images: This page uses two NASA MODIS satellite images. The two images combine to show
