Ice Patterns and Hydrothermal Plumes, Lake Baikal, Russia: Insights from Space Shuttle Hand-Held Photography

Abstract

Earth photography from the Space Shuttle is used to examine the ice cover on Lake Baikal and correlate the patterns of weakened and melting ice with known hydrothermal areas in the Siberian lake. Particular zones of melted and broken ice may be surface expressions of elevated heat flow in Lake Baikal. We explore the possibility that hydrothermal vents can introduce local convective upwelling and disrupt a stable water column to the extent that the melt zones which are observed in the lake's ice cover in Space Shuttle photographs (from missions STSJlB, April 29-May 5, 1985, and STS-39, April 28-May 6, 1991) are produd. The two regions of focus are Frolikha Bay in the northeast comer of the lake (where hydrothermal plumes were observed) and the Academic Ridge, a steep, faultbounded submarine ridge which extends north from Olkhon Island near the west-central margin of the lake. A heat flow map and photogmphs of the lake are overlaid to compare specific areas of thinned or broken ice with the "hot" spots.The regions of known hydrothermal activity and high heat flow correlate extremely well with circular regions of thinned ice, and zones of broken and recrystallized ice. We also consider local and regional climate data and other sources of warm water, like river inlets.

Giant ice rings on lakes Baikal and Hovsgol: Inventory, associated water structure and potential formation mechanism

“…Both MODIS and Landsat have sun‐synchronous orbits and they revisit each place at the same local time (at about 3 or 4 h UTC for Lake Baikal, which corresponds to local late morning—GMT+8). We have also analysed satellite photography (with different spatial resolution and time coverage, 1983–2009) from the International Space Station (ISS) and US Space Shuttle (Evans et al ; Circles in Thin Ice 2009; The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth ).…”