The possibility of a tsunami on Lake Baikal

Abstract

Based on the general physical nature of tsunami generation, it is established that it is an attribute of seismically hazardous areas and regions adjacent to large water reservoirs and is threatening to the popula� tion and infrastructure of the coastal zones. The main preconditions and possibilities for the occurrence of tsunami on Lake Baikal are considered: the information on earthquakes in the Baikal hollow during the instrumental-historical period (1724-2011) is generalized in the map of epicenters of shocks of magnitude M ≥ 5 and histograms of the distribution of numbers of shocks with respect to magnitude. It is shown that the tsunami waves start forming on Baikal if the earthquake magnitude M is ≈5, but since a system of tsunami monitoring on Baikal is absent, it can be observed only during the strongest earthquakes of M > 7. The cata� strophic Tsagan earthquake (1861, M ≈ 7.5) is given as an example. It happened near the eastern coast of Lake Baikal and caused a tsunami with people's deaths.