The book is devoted to the International Baikal Drilling Project, a part of the program «Global changes of the environment and climate», accomplished by the Russian, American and Japanese scientists. Much attention is given to the fact that the Baikal Drilling team acted as a single, solid team. The major results obtained from those studies were described in numerous publications published in various Russian and International journals. We hope that the book will be interesting for young scientists, so that they can feel an interest in studying the secrets of nature. The project was accomplished owing to the efforts of M.I. Kuzmin, V.S. Antipin, A.V. Goreglyad, V.F. Geletyi, G.V. Kalmychkov (Institute of Geochemistry, SB RAS), M.A Grachev, O.M. Khlystov (Limnological Institute, SB RAS). Many problems that arouse in the project management were solved with the assistance of V.A. Fialkov, Director of the Baikal Museum, SB RAS, A.A. Bukharov, Vive-Director of the Baikal Museum, and the translators T. V. Bunaeva and M. Yu. Khomutova. The book not only describes a difficult work in the ice of Lake Baikal, but also presents the valuable data on the mineral composition of the bottom sediments, the discovery of Baikal gas hydrates, and the evolution of the landscapes and climate of the Baikal region in the Late Cenozoic. Modern methods of electron-probe x-ray spectral microanalysis and isotope geochemistry are described in detail. All this, as well as the methods of modeling real mineral associations, make this book valuable for researchers in different fields of science.