Question: Why is the Dead Sea so salty?

Asked by irisrodriguez to Alice, Andi, Bas, Daniel, Rhian on 13 Mar 2015.

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  1. Photo: Alice MarzocchiAlice Marzocchi
    answered on 13 Mar 2015:

    Hi!
    Good question! And there are actually several reasons why the Dead Sea is so salty.
    First of all the Dead Sea is landlocked, which means that it’s a bit like a lake, surrounded only by land, with no connection with the sea.
    It is also located in one of the lowest valleys on the planet (actually below sea level) which means that a lot of rivers flowing downhill end up in the basin. The waters of these rivers carry salts with them, which get to the Dead Sea and then have no escape from it, because there is no outlet to the sea.
    So this water starts evaporating and it leaves the salts behind. As more water flows in, more salts also flow in, the water evaporates and the salts stay.
    All this concentrates salt in the basin and over time this has made the Dead Sea super salty.

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  2. Photo: Bas van den BergBas van den Berg
    answered on 16 Mar 2015:

    I could not have explained it better than Ali! The only thing I want to add is that actually the dead sea is a kind of mini version of this salt crisis that i am studying that happened 6 million years ago. Then, the whole Mediterranean was in a situation like the dead sea is today, got very salty, and huge layers of salt were formed on its seafloor. In geology many times history repeats itself and it is good to look for examples of today’s earth to get more clues about what happened millions of years ago 🙂

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  3. Photo: Rhian MearaRhian Meara
    answered on 16 Mar 2015:

    excellent answers! 🙂

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