UNESCO World Heritage Centre: 5 ideas worth knowing

5 ideas from UNESCO World Heritage Centre, each explained in a minute and credited to the original work. Free on Savvy.

One Siberian lake holds a fifth of all the unfrozen fresh water on Earth
Lake Baikal is both the world's oldest lake, at roughly 25 million years, and its deepest, plunging to about 1,700 metres. Its sheer volume means it holds around 20% of all unfroze…
— UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Lake Baikal
The river that never reaches the sea
The Okavango River flows over a thousand kilometres from Angola's highlands, then fans out across Botswana's Kalahari Desert and simply disappears — soaked up by sand and evaporati…
— UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Okavango Delta
You can snorkel between two continents pulling apart in real time
Iceland sits directly on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the boundary where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are slowly drifting apart. At Thingvellir, that rift is visible …
— UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Thingvellir National Park
One lake holds a fifth of all the fresh liquid water on Earth's surface
Lake Baikal in Siberia is both the world's deepest lake, plunging 1,642 metres, and its oldest, at roughly 25-30 million years old. Because of its immense volume it holds about 20%…
— UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Lake Baikal
A flooded volcanic vent keeps an entire lake at a rolling boil
The Boiling Lake in Dominica sits inside Morne Trois Pitons National Park, a flooded fumarole where volcanic gas and heat vent up through a crack in the Earth, keeping the lake's g…
— UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Morne Trois Pitons National Park

Five ideas worth knowing, every week