Elgygytgyn Lake

• Location in the meteorite crater
• Endemic fish species
• Valuable climate archive

Elgygytgyn ( Chukchi Эльгыгытгын [ ɛɬɣə ˌ ɣətɣən ] The white lake ', Russian Эльгыгытгын ) is a lake in Eastern Siberia. He is on the Anadyr Plateau in the Chukchi Autonomous District. The lake has a diameter of about twelve kilometers and is 169 meters deep. Its name refers to the long ice cover: The lake is covered with ice nine months a year. Only from mid-July to October, he is free of ice.

Formation

The lake is located within a meteorite crater ( impact structure ) with a diameter of 18 kilometers. The meteorite impact occurred about 3.6 million years ago, that is, at the turn of the lower to middle Pliocene. The Elgygytgyn crater thus is considered a relatively young crater. Since it due to its very well preserved and is relatively large, it was already recognized in the 1970s, despite its remote location, a meteorite crater. Furthermore, the Elgygytgyn one of only two known impact craters on Earth that were formed in volcanic rocks.

Special

Although north of the Arctic Circle, the lake was during the ice age not covered by glaciers, so that the lake sediments of Elgygytgyn form a valuable for science climate archive. This is currently being investigated in several research projects.

Another feature of the Elgygytgyn are his fish. Two of them, Salvethymus svetovidovi and Salvelinus elgyticus, are endemic ie, occur only in this lake. The third naturally occurring species is Salvelinus boganidae or a close relative. A few years ago also has been introduced to the lake trout. This means that any fish in the lake to the salmon fishing.

Transliteration

Scientifically an apostrophe is set for the Cyrillic soft sign ь; Э is the DIN standard (different from the international ISO 9) characterized by an over set point. The German scientific transliteration according to DIN 1460 is therefore Ėlgygytgyn.