Lake Teletskoye - Research

Research

There is a field base of Institute of Taxonomy and Ecology of Animals (Russian: Институт систематики и экологии животных СО РАН) by Siberian Division of Russian Academy of Sciences (Russian: Сибирское отделение Российской академии наук) at northwest part of the lake, about 6 km from head water of Biya River. On basis of it are performed researches of insect-eaters and rodents of Altai Republic, helminthofauna of vertebrates in biocenoses of taiga, ichthyocenose and animal plankton of Lake Teletskoye. Near the base is located research-and-production sport-and-sanitary base of Gorno-Altaisk State University. Tomsk State University carries out its investigation more than 50 years. Many years here work ecologists from Institute of Water and Ecological Problems (Russian: Институт водных и экологических проблем СО РАН) by Siberian Division of Russian Academy of Sciences, and also geologists and archeologists from the Academy. Geomorphologists and geologists scrutinize geological structure of Lake Teletskoye, its paleogeography, age and origin.

It has been known since a long time that there is gold in placers and bedrock deposits in the Altay. The Geomorphologists from Tomsk State University works in the Teletskoye geology-prospecting detachment searching for gold-placers. They managed to establish a new search criterion for a placer. The base for the discovery were the palaeoglaciological studies during the last few years and theoretical models of the diluvial morpholithogenesis. The content of the precious component is everywhere much higher than the lowest accepted industrial standard, sometimes it’s tremendous.

The investigators carried out large-scale exploration routes on vast territories near watersheds of the upper reaches of all the rivers in the northern and western parts of the Teletskoye Lake basin. These explorations included studies of exposures, boring of prospect-holes, pits and hollow wells (up to 15 m deep). The results of these investigations let us speak about the regularity and reliability of the new criterion. The first 14C-method data for the layered clays on the flat watersheds showed the age of 15 thousand years and younger. This important fact leads to an unavoidable conclusion about the youth of the Teletskoje Lake depression – the post-glacial age of “the last cutting” during the pre-glacial (Late Quaternary) peneplain.