As a result, the Sea is famous for its body buoyancy properties, as people who take an exploratory dip generally find themselves riding high on its waters. The Dead Sea is also the lowest point on earth, and getting lower every year, as water that would ordinarily fill it by flowing in from the Jordan River has been diverted to quench the thirst of Israel, Jordan, and Palestine.
Every year, the lake drops over a meter per year. If this goes on long enough, the Sea could face Owens Lake's and the Aral Sea's fate: becoming a wind-swept salt flat. Yet, for now, life goes on. Biologists have known since the s the lake is "not dead yet". Instead, it's full of microbes that get along quite happily in the salty soup, for it keeps out competitors that would take over in a more hospital aqueous environment.
Occasionally, when conditions are right, the sea blooms red with life. This happened in and In any case, divers from Israel and Germany finally braved the waters this year to see what might have been causing the aforementioned concentric-ringed ripples observed near shore. They were not disappointed.
This is what they found hit the button at the bottom right corner of the youtube player to watch it in uber-super-cool full screen mode :. These are freshwater springs, jetting into the bottom of the Dead Sea from inside craters. Found as deep as feet from the surface, the springs lie at the base of craters as large as 50 feet wide and 65 feet deep. As can be seen, a variety of interesting geological formations surround them.
The springs roil the waters they flow into in a phantasmal slipstream. Starting at about , you can see it coiling and mixing like it's hundreds of degrees hotter or more sugary than the surrounding water. But no, it's just that much less salty and dense. A little known fact is that the Dead Sea itself actually contains fresh water, which comes from freshwater springs that are found at its bottom.
Near these springs more types of microorganisms can be found: single-celled algae, cyanobacteria, and green sulfur bacteria. Other microorganisms that were found at the bottom of the Dead Sea are nearly 80 species of fungi. Dead Sea animals do not include only those found inside the sea, but also those found in its area. The Jordan Rift Valley, where the Dead Sea is located, is a migration corridor for various animal species.
These include storks and various birds of prey on their way to Africa, as well as jungle cats also called swamp cats , marsh frogs, European green toads, crabs, snails, and various water insects. Apr 25, Jacob Myers Mar 24, Hi I would like to know why its called the dead sea for class work. Love the site.
Hi, brookly! I love this site too!!!!!!!!! It's so awesome and plus it has amazing facts!!!!!!! Hi, jacob! Sounds like you found someone you know! Super cool!
Mar 23, Feb 21, Thanks for the compliment, filix! We appreciate the KIND words! Hi, filix! We hope you are, too!
Sambo Mar 30, Wonderopolis Mar 30, Earnest Richburg Feb 14, Been to The Dead Sea, floated on it, and I flipped over one time the water is very, very saltly, I don't want to do that anymore again.
It burned my mouth, but I really enjoyed the trip, we had a very good time. Loved it, I pray that I will be able to go again. Loved it, love Israel. Wonderopolis Feb 19, Geralizze May 16, This is really interesting information. I love learning about the oceans :D. Wonderopolis May 16, Floating in a lake, perfect. That is my next vacation destination.
Wonderopolis May 6, We agree, Flyina! It does sound perfect! Please take us all with you when you go! Owlgirl May 2, Do salt companies get any of their salt from the Dead Sea? Wonderopolis May 3, Rachel May 2, I have not even heard of the Dead Sea in my life.
To me, this is all new. Wonderopolis May 2, Kaleb May 2, Sonic May 2, The sea can be deadly like when you're in a current and you try to get out. You can drown from that if you're ever stuck in a current just go with the flow!!!!!!
Ashley May 2, Cool wonder for the day. I love the ocean and everything in it. I just wish people would listen to others and understand that sharks are not dangerous, they just do not understand what we are. But still, cool wonder.
Howell's class May 2, Dear Wonderopolis, We did not know about the Dead Sea. We learned a lot of interesting facts. We enjoyed the video. We still wonder why does the Dead Sea only get a little bit of rain? We also wonder more about how the salty water makes people float better? Is this really true? Did the Dead Sea used to have animals at one time? We think tomorrow's wonder of the day has something to do with magnets Sincerely, Ms.
Howell's third grade class. Kenny May 2, That's so amazing how you can float without any flotation devices! Also, I believe tomorrow's Wonder will be about magnets. Connor May 2, I think tomorrow's wonder is about magnets or magnetic fields. TJ May 2, Dear Wonderopolis, Cool wonder. I think Monday's wonder will be about pulling stuff. Today we are going back to Dublin, Ohio.
I will tell you the story on Monday, TJ :. Faith May 2, The name frightened me a little in the beginning! That was very neat! Why don't they try to take out most of the water? Marissa May 2, So, the Dead Sea is even saltier then the Atlantic Ocean? What a salty Sea I mean lake. The video was a little weird because when I was watching it, the Dead Sea looked really deadly. Miss Newell's 2nd Grade Class May 2, The Dead Sea is pretty amazing! We are wondering: can people walk on the salt that we saw in the video?
Also, why does the water sometimes look brown? It is neat that people can float with no rafts! Toren May 2, That looks like an awesome place to visit. I liked the ponds better than the mountains and stuff. Amaury May 2, Dozens of giant craters spewing fresh water and brimming with bacteria have been found at the otherwise barren bottom of the Dead Sea, new research shows. In the first diving expedition to the springs revealed "a fantastic hot spot for life" in the lake, which lies on the border of Israel and Jordan see map , said team member Danny Ionescu , a marine microbiologist for the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
The team found several craters—each about 33 feet 10 meters wide and 43 feet 13 meters deep—at foot meter depths on the lake's bottom. The craters were covered with films and sometimes surprisingly thick mats of new bacterial species, Ionescu said.
These tiny communities live near thin plumes of fresh water that shoot from undersea springs, whose presence has long been suspected based on peculiar ripples on the Dead Sea's surface.
To reach the springs, divers searched for abrupt drops along the seafloor while contending with very low visibility. But once the water cleared near the base of the crater, seeing the plumes jetting from the earth was "a fascinating feeling," he said. Rivers and streams—most notably the Jordan River—once regularly infused fresh water into the Dead Sea. The basin has no outlet, so water escapes only by evaporation.
As fresh water evaporates, salty minerals dissolved in the water get left behind. Over time, this process made the Dead Sea much saltier than ocean water. The lake's saltiness means that larger organisms such as fish and frogs can't survive in the Dead Sea. But a high concentration of magnesium also makes it surprising to find microbes in the lake. The move severely lowered the lake's water level—a loss that continues by up to a meter four feet a year, according to the research team.
Water in the lake, which already sits in the lowest place on Earth, has fallen by more than 80 feet 25 meters in the past 40 years. Few biologists have studied the water body in recent years, except following two major algae bloom events that colored the Dead Sea red in and The surface blooms were caused by organisms different than those recently discovered at depth, Ionescu noted.
In general, the "study really changes how we see the Dead Sea, from a biological perspective," said Kelly Bidle , an environmental microbiologist at Rider University in New Jersey who studies bacteria that live in salty habitats.
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