The saltiest seas in the world. The saltiest sea in the world

When Lot and his family fled from the collapsing Sodom, his wife could not resist and looked back at the dying city. It was impossible to do this, and therefore it turned into a huge pillar of salt, which can be seen on the coast of the Dead Sea to this day.

The Dead Sea is one of the most unusual and unique bodies of water on our planet. First of all, because in reality it is a lake into which the waters of the Jordan River and several other small rivers flow: about 7 million tons of water flow here every day, which, despite the fact that it does not flow out anywhere, due to the high air temperature, quite quickly evaporates.

On the other side of the river lies Moab, the place where Moses “went up to Mount Nebo,” which lies before Jericho, and saw the holy land promised by God to the descendants of Abraham. On this mountain there is also the tomb of the great prophet, but no one knows exactly where it is, in order to prevent his idolatry. The Holy Scriptures tell us that the children of Israel wept thirty days for his death, and at the end of these days Joshua, the son of Navi, along with all the people of Israel, miraculously crossed the waters of the Jordan into the promised land. The exact location of this miraculous passage is identified with the old passage across the Jordan River, near which St. John the Baptist also preached.

Various minerals and salt from the Dead Sea brought by river waters remain and join the minerals already in the lake, turning it into one of the saltiest bodies of water on our planet (the salt concentration in the local water is 30%, while in the ocean it is 3.5%) .

Education

Many people are interested in the question, where is the Dead Sea? One of the largest salt lakes on our planet is located in the east of the Judean Desert. West Coast The reservoir belongs to Jordan, the eastern part belongs to Israel. On the map the Dead Sea can be found at the following coordinates: 31° 20′ 0″ N, 35° 30′ 0″ E.

According to tradition, this place is the same as the "place of immersion", the place where it was baptized by our Lord Jesus Christ. For a long time in this desert, God prepared through prophets and miracles the path of the Lord from Abraham and Moses to John the Baptist. Here God spoke to our parents many times and he performed great miracles for us to believe and know the goodness and care of Him for all mankind. From here the prophet Elijah was lifted to heaven in a fire cart. Here his disciple Elisha healed Nechaman the Syrian of leprosy in the Jordan, then raised a dead man and sweetened the bitter waters of the Jericho River.

The sea was formed at the very bottom of the Syrian-African Rift - a huge depression earth's crust, formed due to the movement of continental plates (it begins in the south of Turkey and ends in Zimbabwe, in the southeast of the African continent). The movement of tectonic plates has made this territory seismically active: mild earthquakes occur here every year (people do not feel them, but instruments record them).

The process of formation of the Dead Sea is quite interesting. The depression was filled with oceanic waters, and over millions of years, the remains of marine animals, fish, and plants settled to the bottom, which subsequently formed calcareous rocks, while the water here was not constant: it came and went. Therefore, the layers of salt that the sun evaporated from sea water gradually mixed with layers of sedimentary rocks.

But above all, on the rocks and sand, are the feet of John the Baptist and our Lord Jesus Christ - the true God who created for man, created Him and descended in the most humble way into the Jordanian waters to receive Holy Baptism from the hands of St. John the Baptist.

It is enough for you just now to sit in the holy serenity of the desert and think about how many wonderful things God has done for us and for our salvation and how little we do for God. That is why this land, from ancient times, was of particular interest to Christians and Jews, but especially to monks who sought the Kingdom of God recklessly. Evidence of this is the crowd of monasteries that were built over the Jordan Valley, including a Romanian settlement built near the site of the Epiphany.

After some time, a permanent body of water formed here - the Lashon Sea (predecessor of the present one), the length of which exceeded 200 km, and the surface was 180 m below the level of the World Ocean. Volcanic eruptions completely blocked the channel connecting Lashon with the Mediterranean Sea - and it began to dry up. After Lashon completely dried up (this happened 17 thousand years ago), two bodies of water remained - the freshwater Lake Kinneret and the salty Dead Sea.

On a parallel course with the waters of the Jordan, the ruins of many national Christian settlements were destroyed today after the war. in the same situation, our settlement, and still nothing can be done to restore it, because the area is militarized and completely closed.

Following the road leading to Jericho from here, we reach a Greek church built on the site of the cave where St. John the Baptist lived, through the same area through which the twelve tribes of Israel also passed to the Promised Land. The church works quite well, but only once a year can be served here on the day of the procession of the blessing of water in Jordan, since it is also included in the protected border area. A short distance from here is the only monastery in this valley open to tourists.

Currently, the Dead Sea consists of two separate basins, separated by an isthmus that appeared in 1977. Northern - a larger and deeper reservoir, the maximum depth of which is 306 meters and Southern - hotels and enterprises extracting minerals are located here, which is why it gradually turned into an artificial reservoir, and therefore the water level here is regulated by man, and average depth is about two meters.

It was founded by George of Jordan, who founded it with the purpose of serving as a settlement for all hermits in the Jordan Valley. From the life of the saint we know that he managed to unite his hermit with the monasticism of people, being the great creator of the miracle himself, who had a lion as a disciple. Today the area is almost deserted, but in ancient times there were many commercial caravans from Egypt to Syria and other countries. Often these caravans were attacked by predators, and so the monasteries here were in the form of fortresses, where the desert monks would retreat to protect them from the invaders.

The Dead Sea has the following parameters:

Square salt lake is 650 km. sq. (over the last century it has decreased significantly - it was 930 sq. km.);
Maximum width – 18 km;
Length – 67 km (it is designated by summing the length of the southern and northern basins, the length of the latter being 54 km);
The mud layer at the bottom is about 100 meters;

The water level of the Dead Sea as of December 2012 was 427 meters lower and is falling by one meter annually, making it one of the lowest land areas on our planet.

It is believed that here the Mother of God with the baby Jesus will also be on the way to Egypt. Despite this, throughout this monastery and in the places represented, many saints such as Mary of Egypt, Saint Zosimas, Bishop Joseph of the Church, Saint John of Yakutia - Roman of Neamtu and many others may not be known to us, but of course known by God. From here we will begin along the road leading to the biblical city of Jericho, a neighboring city and featured on the adjacent pages.

The Dead Sea is a natural wonder located in the center great valley valley of the Sri Lian River, located between Israel and the Kingdom of Jordan. The Dead Sea has the highest concentration of salt compared to any other big world, salt lakes or any part of the water. The concentration of salt in the Dead Sea is ten times higher than that of other major seas. The high mineralization of the waters of the Dead Sea prevents the existence of life in the water, hence its name - the Dead Sea. In Hebrew, the name "Yam Hamelach" was attributed to Christian monks amazed by the apparent absence of any form of life in seawater.

The coast of a unique sea

On south coast Dead Sea located thermal springs and puddles of greasy black mud, which have long been considered healing: it is absolutely known that King Herod bathed in them.

There are mountains and salty pillars here. Among them is Mount Sedom, whose height above sea level is 250 m, formed during powerful underground pressure that pushed a plug of salt to the surface. Now this mountain is a huge salt dome 11 km long and 1.5 km wide, cut by a huge number of caves (it is believed that there are at least a hundred of them here, and the total length is 20 km).

From 000 to 000 years ago, the level of the Dead Sea was 360 meters. In places where rivers flow into the Dead Sea, the water is absorbed by sandy soil and groundwater. Due to the shrinking of the Dead Sea, underground streams flow, destroying clay deposits. The minerals found in the Dead Sea are known throughout the world for their healing qualities and are distributed throughout the world under the brand name Ahava. Over the past 40 years, the shores of the Dead Sea have retreated about 1.5 kilometers, almost all the restaurants and hotel complexes that have been built on the waterfront. - The first reason is that the sea drops 13 centimeters per year. - Reason No. 2 affects reason number one, namely, the dam built on the Jordan River, the only source of water feeding the Dead Sea, had an impact on the volume of water feeding the area. - There is also a reason 3 behind the pharmaceutical industry: over-extraction of ores in water.

Caves are constantly being formed in this mountain: a few rains slowly dissolve the salt, destroying old caves and creating new ones in their place. The grottoes themselves are extremely beautiful - there are not only sinter formations, but also huge crystals. In Mount Sedom, at a depth of 135 meters, there is the largest salt cave on our planet - Malham, the length of which is 5.5 km.

In Southwest Asia, between Israel and Jordan, is the Dead Sea, which is a lake whose water is extremely salty. His east coast belongs to Jordan, and half of the western part of the coast is part of Israel. The Dead Sea is a hypersalina lake. Its water is almost 10 times salty, like the water of the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. Ancient Essene manuscripts written in Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek were discovered at Qumran, located north of the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea is notable for being located at the lowest elevation of any water on Earth. The water level of the Dead Sea is decreasing at an alarming rate of about one meter per year. The Jordan River is the only one that supplies it with water. We are now looking at reducing the Jordan River catchment. There is talk between Jordan and Israel about creating a canal that could bring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. This project is very ambitious and expensive, involving the creation of seawater desalination plants along the canal.

Advantages

Of course, we are unlikely to know for sure the answer to the question why the Dead Sea is so unique that there are practically no analogues to it on our planet. At present, we can only make assumptions and record its features.

The brine that may result from the desalination process will be released into the Dead Sea, reducing the risk of erosion. Along the canal, some hydroelectric power plants will be located next to desalination plants. However, the project faces opposition from environmentalists who say it is destructive to the environment.

If the hydraulic goal were achieved, it would transport more than 1,000 cubic meters of water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea annually. Desalination plants will have a capacity of up to 1,000 cubic meters per year. That is, in less than 34 years! In Jordan, a country where 92% of the land is desert, water is a valuable resource. Water consumption is rising as more and more refugees from Syria add to the country's population of thousands.

Dead Sea asphalt

The Dead Sea has interesting feature: at its depths, natural asphalt is formed, which the lake throws to the surface in the form of small black pieces - at first they resemble a molten block of earth, and then, as they cool, they turn into a solid state. It is not difficult to collect it from the surface: the salt of the Dead Sea simply does not allow it to return to the bottom.

Compared to other peoples of the Earth, we Romanians, God has endowed us with fertile soil and fresh water in abundance. In the future, a country that has fertile soil and drinking water can be considered very rich. We must do everything possible to keep these resources in the possession of the Romanian people, and not alienate them from papers of illusory value. We shouldn't sell or give them away to all the gold in the world!

The Dead Sea is a lake of salt water on the border of three states: Israel, Jordan and Palestine. The name comes from the fact that such salty water cannot live as living organisms. With a salinity of over 34%, the Dead Sea is one of the saltiest waters in the world. It is filled with several small lakes in the Antarctic or Caspian Sea.

Interesting fact: during excavations on the coast, a huge number of figurines and other things were discovered, including human skulls from Neolithic times, covered with sea asphalt. It was also used by the ancient Egyptians when mummifying their dead.

Air of the Dead Sea

Interestingly, the air, the temperature of which often reaches 40° C, is so unique here that it cannot but cause surprise: due to the location of the Dead Sea below the level of the World Ocean, there is a zone of high atmospheric pressure, which is why the amount of oxygen in this region 15% higher than the amount of oxygen in the area, which is at the level of the World Ocean.

Due to its salinity, one of Madaba's mosaics is represented by the Jordan River, and its water jumps upstream still more fish that came too close to the Dead Sea. It is below sea level, in a very deep depression. The only source for feeding water is the Jordan River, but due to water being captured in last years Water intake for irrigation is completely inadequate.

Several years ago, some large dry areas on south side were covered with water. Temperatures are high throughout the year and there is no wind, so even in the cold months it can be 30 degrees and the water can be 22. In the hot summer months the air temperature exceeds 40 degrees.

The local air contains absolutely no allergens: air masses come here mainly from Indian Ocean, overcoming the desert sands, and therefore do not carry with them industrial pollution and allergens. Considering that evaporation from the surface of a lake saturated with minerals and the salt of the Dead Sea saturate the air with useful components, it clearly has a positive effect not only on healthy people, but also on people with diseased lungs.

In this regard, it is worth mentioning the phenomenon of stratification here. The bottom is a saturated solution of salt water. Any excess salt is deposited at the bottom of the lake. The temperature is constant at 22 degrees. Upper layer has a depth of 30 m and 2% salinity, and the temperature ranges from 19 to 30 degrees, depending on the season. However, in the 1970s, due to decreased flow of the Jordan River, the salinity of the upper layer increased until the solution became saturated and the two layers were combined for the first time in centuries.

Since then, the phenomenon of stratification has emerged. The Dead Sea is famous for the minerals it contains. There are also many cosmetic products enriched with minerals. Some incredible things about the Dead Sea. The only way to move is to sit down or on the bottom and give your hands, but be careful not to get a drop of water in your eyes. You can't touch the bottom of the water with your feet once the water gets bigger than you. The water has an oily consistency. A salt crust forms on the surface of the water, which easily breaks and falls to the bottom. Another bark will take its place. On the shore, sand and salt are found in equal quantities.

It is impossible to sit on your stomach and put your feet in the water.
You can sit in the water as a chair and float.
You can even read the newspaper.

Here are some Interesting Facts about the Dead Sea that you may not have known.

Dead Sea climate

Since the Dead Sea is located near the desert, both the air temperature and the climate here are appropriate - according to statistics, it is 330 sunny days per year, there is little rain (mainly in January and February), and the average relative humidity in summer is 27%, in winter - 38%.

In summer, the temperature ranges from 32 to 40° C, in winter - from 20 to 23° C. An interesting fact is that in the winter, the temperature of sea water, saturated with minerals, is much higher than the temperature of the earth, while in summer the opposite is true.

In the Dead Sea area, due to its location below the level of the World Ocean, weakened ultraviolet radiation is observed - therefore, it is extremely difficult to get sunburn here, and doctors recommend that even an unprepared person stay in the Sun for 6-8 hours.

This temperature and dry climate also has its drawbacks - the water of the Dead Sea evaporates very quickly, which, in combination with human activity, leads to its shallowing. If earlier the Jordan compensated for evaporation, now people use the river’s water for their own benefit, and much less water now reaches the sea than before: over the past half century, the volume of the watercourse has decreased to 100 million cubic meters per year. (previously it was 1.43 billion cubic meters/year).

Dead sea salts

Dead Sea salt is 33.7% (350 grams per 1 liter of water), which is ten times the salinity level of ocean water. Therefore, due to the huge amount of salt, the water of the Dead Sea is thick, dense, oily to the touch and has a metallic blue tint.

People can safely swim in the lake without fear of drowning - the salt of the Dead Sea will not allow them to do this (it’s even difficult to choke here: swallowing such water is extremely disgusting - it is not only salty, but on top of that it also tastes bitter, and when it gets into your mouth and it numbs your tongue).

Swimming here is also not easy: it is best to lie down in the water and relax under the warm rays of the sun, as if in a hammock - fortunately, the temperature of both the air and the water allows this. The only “but”: if there is even the slightest scratch on the skin, it is better not to go into the water - Dead Sea salt, if it gets on the wound, will cause discomfort.

Dead Sea minerals

The unique characteristics of water and mud are influenced not so much by salt as by Dead Sea minerals. And their quantity here is simply off the charts - the waters of the lake contain more than twenty minerals, mainly of inorganic origin, and therefore do not contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, which is why they do not oxidize, maintaining their medicinal properties.

The main minerals of the Dead Sea are:

Magnesium (30 to 34%) is an anti-stress mineral that calms the nervous system;
Potassium (from 22 to 28%) – regulates the amount of fluid in the middle of the cell (in total they contain 4/5 of the water that is in the human body);
Sodium (12 to 18%) – regulates the amount of fluid outside the cells;
Bromine (from 0.2 to 0.4%) – penetrating into the blood through the skin, calming and relaxing the nervous system, has a positive effect on it;
Iodine (0.2 to 0.9%) – has a positive effect on the thyroid gland, including growth, reproduction and activity of the nervous system, the functioning of nerve endings in muscles, skin and hair growth;
Sulfur (0.1 to 0.2%) – disinfects the skin, and is also necessary for the formation of protein substances, vitamins B, B1, biotin, etc.

Dead Sea minerals along with salt, mud, water and optimal temperature, have a positive effect on the human body, giving it the opportunity to get rid of skin diseases, allergies, problems with the lungs, bronchi, nerves, and helps with diseases of the gastrointestinal tract (ulcers, dysbacteriosis, gastritis, hepatitis). The body's metabolism and blood circulation significantly improve, skin elasticity increases, the aging process slows down, etc.

Dead Sea minerals are contraindicated for patients with schizophrenia, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, as well as people who have recently suffered a myocardial infarction, stroke, tuberculosis, or have problems with kidney and liver failure.

Inhabitants

Naturally, the question of why the Dead Sea is called dead, if its climate, water, mud and salt are good for health, cannot but be of interest.

The lake had many names (among them - Salty, Asphalt, Ancient, Sodom), and received the current one due to the fact that it was believed that due to the high salinity of the water, living organisms (primarily fish and sea animals) cannot live here. condition.

Recently it turned out that this is not entirely true: at the end of the last century, scientists discovered that the water of the Dead Sea is teeming with small organisms. About 70 species of moldy fungi live here, settled here long before the sea acquired salinity, which, having developed a new gene, adapted to the local water. In water salty sea Microscopic viruses were also discovered, becoming active only after they enter a living organism, and outside cells taking on the appearance of non-living particles.

20 species of archaea were found: microbes that thrive in a concentrated salt solution and live off the energy they convert from sunlight. Interesting fact: it turned out that 1 ml of Dead Sea water contains several million of these microbes (and if there are a lot of them, they give the water a reddish tint due to their pigment).

During rains, when the salinity of the water on the surface of the sea is slightly diluted, the flagellated algae dunaliella of pink color develops from the pores - the pigment protects it from sunlight, and the high content of glycerol in the plant, which retains moisture, prevents it from dying due to salt. It is interesting that these algae develop extremely quickly and actively: during the “blooming” period their number is several tens of thousands per milliliter. However, they do not live long in the Dead Sea and disappear as soon as the rains stop.

Having collected these facts, scientists suggested that the living organisms they found create a specific ecological system in which algae, archaea and fungi compete with each other for the substances necessary for their development, and viruses control their quantity.

What is this strange sea at the very edge of the deserted scorched earth? It is a closed lake in the deepest part of the Jordan Basin. This is the lowest landmass on the globe - 412 m below the level of the Mediterranean Sea. The Israel-Jordan border runs right in the middle of the sea, so that half of the sea belongs to one country, and the other half to the other. It consists of two pools: a large northern one, up to 350 m deep, and a small and very shallow southern one.

The Dead Sea ranks second in salinity in the world after the lake. Van in Turkey. Its waters are practically lifeless, deserted and surrounding area. The high mineralization of the water is explained by intense evaporation and the presence of salt-bearing rocks at the bottom of the lake. Dissolved mineral salts are approx. 24% of the volume of water (for comparison, we point out that in ordinary sea water their content is less than 4%). If one liter of sea water contains 35 grams of salts, then a liter of Dead Sea water contains 275 grams.

How did the Dead Sea form?

Perhaps some of the readers have already heard about the theory of plate tectonics, which says that all of our continents are on plates moving relative to each other through the more liquid mantle substance (earth layer).

Once, being a single continent, “Pangaea” collapsed under the pressure of volcanic processes, and the continents gradually took their place familiar to us today. Since then, this process has not stopped, and the continents are still moving, each on its own plate. The speed of movement of these plates is different. The tectonic plate that Israel is on moves slower than the plate that Jordan is on. Thus, today the Jordanian plate is 100 km ahead of the Israeli plate, moving north and forming Mount Hermon (Hermon), as well as others mountain ranges located in the territory of modern Lebanon.

This area is part of the Syrian-East African Rift Valley. It is surrounded by the Judah Mountains to the west and the Moab Mountains to the east. Several million years ago, a fracture of the earth's crust occurred in this area, a vast meridional depression was formed, which began to fill with water, and the ancient Tethys Ocean was formed. Then almost all of Eretz Israel was flooded with water several times. As the water level dropped, the stone blocks turned out to be like dams, dividing the reservoir into separate lakes. This is how Lake Hula, Lake Kinneret (Lake of Gennesaret) and the Dead Sea were formed.

The Jordan Valley, in which the Dead Sea lies, is a unique geological formation, an intercontinental depression formed during the split of two continents - Eurasia and Africa. This deepest depression in the world is the most active part of the Syrian-African mountain rift, which in a few million years should lead to the separation of continental platforms. As a result of this, Israel will find itself on the northeastern coast of the African continent, since it stands on this very platform. The clearest evidence of the split is the frequent earthquakes along this line, sometimes very strong, such as in the 3rd and 8th centuries. and 1837. Shocks of 5-6 points occur here once every two to three years, and small ones, recorded only by instruments, two to three times a day. The depression was formed, according to geologists, about 60 million years ago and was immediately filled with water from the Tethys Ocean. It was connected through the corridor of the Jezreel Valley * with the future Mediterranean Sea, which is a relic of Tethys. Later, the ocean left, and for some time the seas were replaced by dry periods, which is clearly visible from the geological section of the rocks. Hence the layers of clays of extraordinary color and appearance preserved in the northernmost part of the basin and near Masada. About 1 million years ago, the depression was filled with very salty water from the Lashon Sea, which extended to where Lake Kinneret is today. Having dried up, the Lashon Sea left behind a trace - a layer of salt - along the length of the depression, almost 2 km deep. On the southern edge of the Dead Sea, this layer is squeezed to the surface by geological forces and forms the huge salt mountain of Sodom.

This bay was called the word “Lashon”, which means “tongue” in Hebrew, and its height was about 180 m below sea level. Today it's smooth dead sea is at around -422m, at these minutes it may already be -423...

The gulf ran along today's geography approximately from the city of Haifa, through the Israel Valley, filling the depression where Lake Kinneret (Galilee\Genisaret) is located today, and from there to the south, to the present-day settlement of Hatzeva, which is south of the Dead Sea.

Further (3-4 million years ago), volcanic eruptions on Golan Heights and in Galilee, the connection between the Gulf of Lashon and the Mediterranean Sea was interrupted, and the bay gradually began to dry up. At the beginning, the Israel Valley dried up and a long strip remained from today’s Kinneret to the Dead Sea, including. The part connecting these two reservoirs gradually dried up, leaving the Kinneret in the north, into which the Jordan River and many streams flow, and a dead sea in the south.

The modern Dead Sea was formed only 20 - 40 thousand years ago from fresh water and is replenished with water from the Jordan River and a number of other freshwater sources - Ein Feshkha, Ein Gedi, Dragot, Arugot, David streams, etc. However, since there is no source from the Dead Sea , the water leaves here solely by evaporation and the dissolved salt remains, constantly concentrating. The evaporation level and temperatures in the valley are high, the water flow exceeds the inflow and the sea is gradually decreasing, over 100 years coastline went down 40 m. According to experts, the Dead Sea will dry up completely over the next 700 - 800 years.

In ancient literature (Josephus and Tacitus) there is information about shipping on the Dead Sea in ancient times, although it was called differently: in the Talmud - the Sea of Sodom; in the New Testament – Salty or East Sea; Josephus calls it Asphalt Lake. Currently in Arab countries this sea is usually designated as Bahr Lut, or "sea of Lot." Dating back to ancient times are the biblical accounts of Abraham and Lot and the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. David was hiding on the western shore of the Dead Sea in En Gedi. The idea that the waters of the Dead Sea swallowed up the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah dates back to the works of Josephus. A special expedition was equipped to search for these cities in 1924. According to her reports, the cities of Sodom, Gomorrah and Zoar were located on the southeastern shore of the lake.

In old times, the water and salt of the Dead Sea were exported to Italy by the Roman nobility. Judean asphalt, a bituminous liquid that rises to the surface of the lake, was used for industrial and medical purposes. Valuable and prestigious cosmetics, perfumes and medicines were produced from plants growing on the shores of the lake, and especially from impatiens. They were of such economic importance that wars were fought over their possession. For example, Mark Antony conquered the Dead Sea region for Cleopatra.

Dead Sea, what's in your name?

This sea was called differently at different times. Several names have survived to this day: “Salt Sea” (yam ha melakh), “Sea of the Arava” (yam ha arava), “East Sea” (yam kedmoni), “Asphalt Sea” (yam ha asphalt) and “Dead Sea.” (yam ha mavet). In all languages it is called dead sea, and in Hebrew it is called salty. Arava is the name of the valley that runs from the south of the Dead Sea, the border of the Judean desert and extends to Eilat. The word "Arava" is translated as steppe.
The sea was called the Eastern or “Kedma” in ancient times because the word “Kedma” is translated as “Before”. This word indicated a geographical direction. The sun rises in the east, which means “in front” there. Today we changed our orientation and “in front” is in our north, where the compass needle actually points. The “Asphalt” sea was named because the inhabitants of this settlement collected clots of asphalt from the surface of the sea. Asphalt was used in various fields, such as repairing ships, roofing, medicines, and also for mummification in Egypt.
Well dead dead It was called the sea because there were no fish in it.

Chemical composition of Dead Sea water.

The percentage of salt in the water is quite high - about 33%, when compared with the Mediterranean Sea, in which the salt content is about 3.5-4%, there is a noticeable difference.
Most people compare swimming in the Dead Sea to swimming in salted oil. Indeed, the water feels oily to the touch, but this is most likely due to the fact that the periodic table was dipped into it more than once. About 20 different minerals are contained in this mixture, which also has medicinal properties and helps people with skin and other diseases.

The mud of the Dead Sea is also unique, as scientists dare to say, it has no analogues in the world.

Who measured the level of the Dead Sea and when?
As stated above Dead Sea level today – 422m from the level of the world ocean. The measurement of the level of the Dead Sea is usually credited to the British, who created the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1865, but the French had taken measurements here the year before.

The French, however, although they were the first to take measurements, for some reason they delayed publishing their material, and it was published only 10 years after the expedition.
The level of the Dead Sea during the French expedition was measured by L. Vignes and at that time it was 392 meters from the level of the world ocean.
In any case, exploration of the Dead Sea and its surroundings began at the end of the 18th century. The first to study the composition of its water was Antoine Laurent, who is considered the founder of modern chemistry. Other researchers from different countries. Two of them in different time, went down the Jordan River, from the southern tip of Lake Kinneret to the Dead Sea itself, although their fate was deplorable...
Not taking into account local climate, and not understanding that the water should be drunk, Christopher Costigan and Thomas Mulina paid with their lives. Today the northern one is called by their names, and South part land that separates the Dead Sea and its basins. On one of the rocks near the Dead Sea there were even marks left by the P.E.F (Palestine Exploration Foundation), which today are quite far from the water. In addition, Highway 90 already passes under them, and driving near this place you can feel the difference in the water level then and now.

Dead Sea today

For thousands of years, in addition to mudflows from the northern part, the Jordan River flowed into the Dead Sea, emanating from the southern tip of Lake Kinneret, until Comrade Pinchas Rutenberg came.
It’s not that Pinchas Rutenberg completely cut off the water with the construction of the hydroelectric power station, but others did it for him a little later.

Thus, the main and permanent source that replenishes the Dead Sea with fresh water turned out to be on the other side of the Dgania platinum. The dam, built in the 30s of the 20th century, is opened only on rare occasions, when the winter is particularly rainy, so that the water does not flood coastal settlements. In recent decades, the dam was opened in the winter of 91/92 and 2003/2004.

By west bank Lake Kinneret is crossed by the “Salty Aqueduct,” which catches water from salty overwater sources on the northern part of Lake Kinneret and discharges this water after the dam.
Thus, the only constant recharge of the Dead Sea is the “Salt Aqueduct” carrying to dead sea already salty water.
The Dead Sea is now drying up or receding by one meter every year. This is a very high rate of drainage of this reservoir, and for this reason people have long taken up their heads, paper, pencils, and began to draw rescue plans.
The plans, as you already understand, are on paper and have changed more than once. There were plans to desalinate water along the coastline Mediterranean Sea, using it instead of the Kinneret lake pumped out, and the water from the Kinneret had to flow into the Dead Sea, as it was before the construction of the platinum. There were also plans to connect the Dead Sea with canals from two other seas, the Red and the Mediterranean, but there has been silence for many years.

Once again, they recently started talking about a plan to connect the Red and Dead Seas with a canal, or pipe.

This time the project should be sponsored by a world bank, and two countries and one autonomy will take part in it. Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, since the sea runs along the territory of these three political entities. The project involves laying a pipe, some of the water from which will be desalinated and go to Jordan, Israel and the autonomy. Water that has not undergone desalination will end up in the sea. In addition, a part of the canal will be built around hotel and an entertainment complex. This is the plan on paper, let's see it in execution.

A postage stamp was issued to encourage the public to pay attention to the problems of the Dead Sea.

With the draining of part of the Dead Sea, sinkholes began to form on its shore and further away, which in Hebrew are called “Bol'anim.” The sinkholes formed because the soil around the Dead Sea has been under water for thousands of years and contains large amounts of salt. When the sea receded and mudflows, descending from the mountains of the Judean desert, began to wash away this salt, and voids gradually formed.
These voids today collapse on the northern part of the Dead Sea, which makes wild beaches dangerous place stay.

In parts of the land from which the Dead Sea disappeared, and which are by definition dead today, the Israelis grow excellent peppers, grapes and other crops. All this is possible thanks to soil leaching big amount fresh water.

I would like to gorge myself that the Dead Sea will be saved, and the lands around it will be green with vegetation, despite the fact that there is a desert around.

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Let me remind you about the beautiful, and you will also be surprised The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy was made -