Age of mud breccia from mud volcanoes in Academician Ridge, Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal is the only freshwater reservoir on Earth with gas-hydrate accumulations in its bottom sediments, partly due to the activity of mud volcanoes. This paper describes a group of mud volcanoes recently discovered on the slope of the Academician Ridge between the northern and central Lake Baikal basins. Our analysis of diatom skeletons in the mud breccia sampled from the study area shows a high abundance of Cyclotella iris et var. These extinct species were also discovered in a core sample from BDP-98 borehole. Based on the biostratigraphic and seis-mostratigraphic correlations, the age of the mud breccia in the studied mud volcanoes ranges from the Late Miocene to the Early Pliocene (4.6 to 5.6 Ma). The correlations suggest that the material originated from a depth of less than 310 m below the lake bottom.