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voor de liefhebbers van underwater docu's & diving ;)

Science Channel: Special Dive To The Bottom Of The World

Scientists to dive to the bottom of the world's deepest lake
Russian team explores the depths of Lake Baikal.

Maria Rossbauer 

In an adventure worthy of Jules Verne, Russian scientists are preparing to dive to a depth of 1,637 metres — the very bottom of Siberia’s Lake Baikal.

The team will make its first attempt at the record dive tomorrow, using the manned submersibles MIR 1 and MIR 2 — already famous for their performance in the movie Titanic.

Tucked away in the remote hills of south-east Siberia where Russia borders China and Mongolia, Lake Baikal, the world's deepest and oldest lake, is home to some of the world's rarest types of fish and other water-life. 

The mission's twin submersibles -- used last year to plant a Russian flag on the North Pole seabed -- slipped into the choppy waters just after dawn and descended 1,680 metres (5,510 feet) to the lake's deepest point, setting a world record for freshwater submersion. 

Each of the bright-red Mir-1 and Mir-2 craft carried three scientists. Chilingarov was with reporters who watched from a mission-control point on a nearby platform. 

Russian officials hailed the five-hour expedition, due to take seabed samples and document Baikal's unique flora and fauna, as a new chapter in Russian science. 

"This is a world record," Interfax news agency quoted one of the expedition's organisers as saying. 

Formed 25 million years ago, Lake Baikal contains 20 percent of the world's total unfrozen freshwater. 

One of its rarities is the Baikal seal -- a scientific mystery in a lake lying hundreds of kilometres from the closest ocean. 

Russia used Chilingarov's mission to the North Pole to stake a symbolic claim to the energy riches of the region believed to hold vast resources of oil and natural gas that are expected to become more accessible as climate change melts the ice cap. 

Thanks to teevee :)