Ice cover of Lake Baikal as a model for studying tectonic processes in the Earth’s crust

Investigation of real geological media faces significant difficulties related to the scale of objects (e.g., the length of fractures ranges from tens to thousands of kilometers) and significant durations of geological processes (long-term observations are needed to obtain reliable information about peculiarities of the response of fractures to forcing). Strains are accumulated over tens and even hundreds of years [1‐3]. Therefore, physical modeling using simplified and smaller-scale block schemes is a promising field in the study of tectonic processes in the Earth’s crust. The rheological characteristics, structural pattern, and forcing dynamics in such schemes can be considered similar to those in the Earth’s crust [4‐5]. The present paper is dedicated to study of the implication of the fracture-block system of ice cover in Lake Baikal and dynamics of its loading as an object for modeling geotectonic and seismogeological processes in the lithosphere. Investigations and observations were carried out during expeditions of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2005‐2006 with the participation of scientists from