After reading this, I can't help but wonder if, in Russia, all their Marklars are called Marklar.

"Russians claim World Record for world's largest jellymould."

"Russians claim World Record for deepest ever submersible descent in jelly."

This could run and run, so I'm going to now.

Seabed? I thought it was a lake? Did they find a cave linking it to the ocean?

I could've done that with a brick.

The Russians are Mirly engaging in a bit of eco-friendly naming.

The Brent Sea, unlike Lake Baikal is a Saltwater Body, and so not a Fresh Water One, gedit now?!?!

"Mir" in Russian means "peace", which makes it even more spooky: why would they insist so much on peaceful nature of these enterprises?

Interesting. Apparently Google Maps can't get me driving instructions from Reading to Lake Baikal. Bloody useless. Maybe I should be using Cuil instead?

That depth isn't a record in freshwater.

1960

Challenger Deep, Mariana Trench (deepest water on the planet, >10Km)

the "Trieste" (a bathyscaphe)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathyscaphe_Trieste

"Do not ask what Wikipedia can do for you; ask what you can do for Wikipedia."

In lieu of the Paris icon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Hilton

I s'pose she's been the object of some deep diving too.

I see it now. They are simply trying to subtly draw attention to the fact that not only are we dependent on the Russians for Gas(and thereby electricity) but that if they succeed in buying out and running down our water processing infrastructure they will also have a monopoly on selling us freshwater!

Brilliant!

I'm crying i'm laughing so hard

simply brilliant.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/07/29/lake-baikal-dive.html

There was a discrepancy in the reported depth.

Trieste went down 10,910 meters. I can hold my breath at 10.911 meters for 2 minutes while freediving.

Other than that, they tried this subsea habitat stuff before with their "Bentos" effort way before the US Sealab experiments took place. I guess they are realising that they are going to need to exploit the sea for its resources in coming years and want to be way ahead of the pack.

It looks like they only made it to 1,580m, not 1,680m as originally reported.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7530230.stm

But they did find some curiously large egg-like things, which naturally they'll bring to the surface and allow to thaw out, late at night, in a room occupied by a single lab technician, oblivious to the cracking sound behind him..

Those "submarines" where designed and built in Finland about 20 years ago.

(like all their Icebreakers), and yeas, no world record this time.

Those Mirs are, however, good for much deaper waters. and very modern still.

HOARDERS!

seriously .. I wonder if the depths are carbonated like some of the volcanic lakes that occasionally explode in Africa?

They explode because some of the carbonated water from the depths rises. And as it is relieved of the crushing pressure that keeps the CO2 dissolved, it begins bubbling, and rises faster, increasing the upwelling very rapidly. Then it is just like taking a bottle of carbonated beverage, shaking it up and popping the top. Note that you don't want to be within several miles of this as the heavy CO2 displaces almost all breathable air until the winds can disperse it. However by then most anything that needs to breathe has perished.

Lake Baikal is not as deep as it once was. The Russians have extracted all the water.

If they keep it up they will be able to walk around the bottom without a submarine. (No comments please I know you can't walk around with a submarine).

The big diving suit with lots of weights please.

> Trieste went down 10,910 meters. I can hold my breath at 10.911 meters for 2 minutes while freediving.

Set your locale to, oh, say, en_ZA, and tell us you can hold your breath at 10.911m -- bet you can't.

!Paris because she probably also didn't know that some places use something other than , and . for the 1000s separator and decimal point.

I guess the point is that the buoyancy of a submersible in fresh water will be much less than that in salt water, making it less difficult to go down but more difficult to get back up again.

@Den: way to take people's comments too seriously, dude :)

Paris, because I'd love to plumb her depths.