Baikal lies in a deep structural hollow surrounded by mountains, some of which rise more than 6,600 feet (2,000 metr.... squar lake

Baikal lies in a deep structural hollow surrounded by mountains, some of which rise more than 6,600 feet (2,000 metres) above the lake's surface. There are occasional severe earthquakes; in 1862 a quake inundated about 77 square miles (200 square km) in the northern Selenga delta, creating a new bay in Baikal known as Proval Bay. The meandering shoreline runs for some 1,300 miles (2,100 km), with large indentations at the bays of Barguzin, Chivyrkuysky, and Proval and at Ayaya and Frolikha inlets; the Svyatoy Nos Peninsula juts out into the lake from the eastern shore. Baikal contains some 45 islets and islands, the largest of which are Olkhon (about 270 square miles [700 square km]) and Bolshoy (Great) Ushkany (3.6 square miles [9.4 square km]). The water temperature at the surface in August is between 50 and 54 F (10 and 12 C) and reaches 68 F (20 C) in the offshore shallows. A pulp and paper mill built on Lake Baikal's southern shore in 1966 drew strong environmental prot! ests from Soviet scientists and writers because its wastes were polluting the water, and in 1971 the Soviet government adopted a decree to protect the lake from polluting emissions. The Lake Baikal Coastal Protection Zone, covering the lake and its environs (a total of 34,000 square miles [88,000 square km]), was created in 1987, and the same area was designated a UNESCO in 1996. Grigory Ivanovich Galazy , Baikal: Sacred Sea of Siberia , Russia's Lake Baikal: The World's Great Lake, National Geographic , 181(6):237 (June 1992); O.M.