Research and educational projects

Comprehensive interdisciplinary studies of natural processes using unique large-scaled facilities: Baikal Neutrino Telescope and System “Tunka”

Main goals of the project:

Comprehensive studies of phenomena and mechanisms of thermal and mass transfer in Lake Baikal and their effect on development of biogeochemical processes aimed at learning the recent state of the lake ecosystem, understanding mechanisms of its functioning, and predicting the ecosystem development;
Studies of processes of thunderstorm activity in atmosphere and their relationship with development of air showers caused by space rays;

Project problems:

To develop new physical methods for studying dynamic processes occurring in Lake Baikal;
To elaborate optical methods of non-contact express-observations of hydrochemical and hydrobiological parameters of Baikal water;
To study origin and characteristics of Baikal water luminescence, to study potential of this phenomenon as a natural indicator of hydrobiological, hydrochemical and hydrophysical processes, and to search living luminescent hydrobionts in Lake Baikal;
To create a new method of coherent acoustic sounding of aquatic environment with frequency-shift keyed signals for precise measurements of water mass movement in Lake Baikalли;
To elaborate methods of information extraction on hydrological processes taking place in Lake Baikal based on data on the geoelectric field and to design new electron equipment and software for long-term observations of variations of the terrestrial electric field;
To elaborate programme software for studying hydrophysical processes on the basis of temperature observations on the space lattice of thermometers;
To carry out long-term multi-parameter observations of hydrophysical and biogeochemical processes with a network of hydrological, acoustic and other devices installed within the huge water volume;
To model processes of horizontal and vertical thermal and mass transfer based on the data obtained.
To create models of the effect of physical factors on vital strategy of Baikal hydrobionts.