ATD pg 768: Lake Baikal (Spoilerish)

[Bryan Snyder]

Hey -

Just looked up some interesting stuff on Lake Baikal.  The AtDwiki has nothing on this topic.  I plan on putting this all up there soon but figured I'd share here as well.

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF9/986.html

"...Lake Baikal lies in a rift valley--a place where the earth's crust is pulling apart. The section of Asia lying northwest of the lake is pulling away from the part to the southeast at the rate of two centimeters (about three-quarters of an inch) a year. That helps explain its great depth, and also its great age. Much scientific interest stems from Baikal's age. Nearly all big freshwater bodies are geologically young, less than 20,000 years old (Iliamna, for example, only appeared after the glaciers left that part of Alaska). Lake Baikal is at least a thousand times older, and the highend [sic] estimates go to 50 million years."

"...Baikal's antiquity also offers unusual possibilities for researchers in the life sciences. The lake holds 1550 species or variants of animals and 1085 of plants; of these, 1000 occur nowhere else. Organisms have adapted and evolved to fit the numerous niches in this freshwater sea, to the point a British scientist has described as an "evolutionary explosion." Some of these creatures look familiar, Lake Baikal has grayling very like those found in Alaska--only much bigger. Others are exotic by anyone's standards: one of the 80 species of flatworms in the lake is the world's largest (40 centimeters or nearly 16 inches long). It eats fish."

"...It may be hard on northern North American egos, but next to Baikal, our mighty lakes seem to shrink. Iliamna, Kluane, even Great Slave are youthful ponds in comparison to this elder giant. Baikal's surface area, about 34,000 square kilometers (more than 13,000 square miles), ranks seventh among the world's lakes, covering about the same area as the country of Belgium. But at 1637 meters (nearly 5400 feet), it is the deepest lake on the planet. The combination of area and depth means that Lake Baikal holds more fresh water than all five Great Lakes combined."

pictures of Lake Baikal:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/lakebaikal/

and the wikipedia article:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal


So this whole Kit-to-Tunguska thing has really pulled me deep into the book... I love Pynchon's attention to one of the oldest and more interesting juxtapositions of culture in the world, viz. the Russian, Chinese & Arabic melting that happens near the Uygur area.  The architecture is produces alone is amazing. 

Wonderful stuff here regarding Kit's journey.

Question - any idea what the Prophet of the North is referencing to?
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