Academician Ridge is an underwater, structural high separating two of Lake Baikal's three basins, the Central and North basins. Situated in the central part of the Baikal Rift, it serves as an "accommodation zone", transferring "motion between faults of similar displacement but different orientation" (Hutchinson et al., 1992). The ridge is bounded by two large normal faults, the Primorsky Fault on the northwest and the Olkhon Fault on the southeast, and an oblique-slip fault, the Academician Fault, that runs along the crest of the ridge. The margins of the ridge, Olkhon Island to the southwest and the Ushkanie Islands to the northeast, are above lake level while the center of the ridge is submerged to depths of 350–400 m (Kuzmin et al., 2000).