Bubble Ice Lake

Bubble Ice Lake is an original illustration set in Lake Baikal, Siberia. It lies in mid-latitudes, where the climate is subarctic — long freezing winters, brief summers.

Stacked strings of white bubbles are frozen inside glass-clear blue ice, seen from directly above. A radiating web of pale cracks runs across the surface. Snow-dusted ridges stand far off under a low winter sun and brutal cold.

Why are there frozen bubbles stacked inside the lake ice?

The bubbles are methane rising from the lake bed and caught by ice forming faster than they can escape — stacked in strings because the freeze advanced in stages. Ice this clear means the water beneath is exceptionally pure and the lake froze without wind stirring it. A basin deep and old enough for methane seeps is a continental rift, not a glacial hollow.

Terpano is a free daily geography puzzle. You study one original illustration, place a pin on a borderless terrain map, and see how close you were. There is no account and no sign-up; progress stays in your own browser. It plays in 11 languages.