Lakes are different - large and small, deep and shallow. But which of them are the most ancient? And is it possible to determine the age of such formations in general? As practice has shown, the age of lakes can be determined - at least approximately, and for this it is enough to get to their bottom sediments. There is also another feature that allows you to determine which lake may be the most ancient.

So, the tectonic reservoirs, as well as those that have remained from the ancient seas, turn out to be the oldest. The rest usually exist no more than 15 thousand years, gradually swamping, overgrowing, clogging with their own bottom sediments, then turning into a plain, or even forming a convex relief. What lakes can be considered the most ancient, if we consider the modern map of the world?

Big Salt Lake in the USA

The reservoir was not formed from the sea or ocean, but from the huge Lake Bonneville, which formed about 32,000 years ago and about 16,800 years ago, the lake was dry. Today, the reservoir is located on the High Basin Highlands, whose height is more than 1200 meters above sea level.

Vivi Lake in the Krasnoyarsk Territory

Lake Vivi is located on the Putorana plateau, it is located in a geological fracture, which formed a very long time ago. The lake is distinguished by its beauty, and they attribute it to the Yenisei basin.The relief, as well as the geological structure of the earth's crust in many territories of Siberia, is distinguished by complexity, elevations and gorges, as well as magmatic influxes appeared due to the activity of Siberian traps that erupted in past eras. The lake is the geographical center of Russia; it has still been little studied (even the maximum depth is not known).

East Lake in Antarctica

It would seem that in Antarctica there can be nothing interesting, because this continent is almost completely covered with ice. But this is not a true statement. There is a lot of interesting things under the ice, and in particular, there is an ancient lake with age not less than 20 million years - it is called East, and is located under a four-kilometer layer of ice.

Scientists managed to drill this massif and find out that the reservoir, which is located almost in the center of the continent, where the average temperature is almost -60 degrees, has bottom sediments, and its depth is about 500 meters. This is a lake of tectonic origin, located in the crack of the earth's crust. And it seems that for a million years, the reservoir has remained an ice layer isolated from the environment.

Kivu Lake in Africa

Another tectonic lake located in the Great Rift Valley of Africa. Here the earth’s crust diverges, forming a very peculiar relief and creating gaps, in one of which is this ancient pond. More specifically, the lake is located between Congo and Rwanda. Since the earth's crust diverges, it can be assumed that in the future this pond will become even larger and will exist for a very long time.

The Caspian is not a sea, but a lake

The Caspian does not have direct communication with other seas or oceans, and therefore it should be considered a salt lake. This is a very ancient formation, probably left over from a larger sea that had access to the ocean - at least at the bottom of the lake is the oceanic crust. It is believed that once the Black Sea was directly connected to the Caspian, but later the waters receded, and the area acquired a modern look. There is also an opinion that the Aral Sea and the Caspian are a single system, prone to periodic fluctuations in water level, but this hypothesis needs proof.

Baikal - the largest and cleanest lake

Another ancient body of water is Baikal, existing in the fracture of the earth's crust for at least 25-35 million years. The earth’s crust also diverges here, and Baikal expands - it will exist for a very long time. Until it merges with the ocean, scientists believe that it is on this fault that Europe and Asia will someday separate from each other, breaking up into two continents. In the foreseeable future, this does not threaten, because the earth's crust moves extremely slowly, by a few centimeters per year. This lake should be protected - up to 70 percent of the species living in its cleanest waters are endemic - they are found only here.

Titicaca Lake in South America

This lake can be called the oldest on Earth - at least, many scientists believe so. Despite the fact that today it is located in an alpine region and is ascended 3.8 kilometers above sea level, its past may surprise.Once it was a part of the ocean, which rose with the movements of the earth's crust, but this lake was able to desalinate due to the rivers flowing into it.

Considering the geological past of the lakes, one can be surprised at a lot. Among them there are unique centenarians with a rich history, which is difficult to even believe in, and there are those that grow and swamp after a few centuries. However, a person can change much by force - if you clean the pond and rid it of bottom debris, in any case, it will last much longer.