The Dead Sea

[yvonneking]

Why is the dead sea so salty

[Clanad]

The surface of the Sead Sea is 1,300 feet below mean sea level (MSL) and the bottom is nearly 2,300 feet below sea level, making it one of the lowest places on earth.  This is because of it's positioning along the East Rift Valley.  Additionally, it continues to sink lower by about 13 inches each year.  The sea has several inlets of fresh water, but no outlet so the mineral salts becomes quite concentrated, especially due to the high evaporation rate of the water...

[newtron]

Evaporation being the only output for water is probably the main reason.  However if the Dead Sea is subsiding at the rate mentioned by Clanad (13 inches a year!  that's a lot!), there are probably brines from deep in the sediments below that are being discharged into the sea due to compaction of the sediments.

[Clanad]

To have been more accurate, I should have said the subsidence is as much as 13 inches per year. The European Space Agency (Esa) Earth Resources Satellites (ERS-1 and ERS-2) surveyed the Dead Sea between 1992 and 1999 and identified regions that were sinking.

Subsidence rates have now been measured accurately for the first time. Typically, the land is going down across the whole region by two centimetres (less than one inch) a year, but data show some areas are falling by up to six centimetres a year. Again, this is due to the Sea's location directly over the East Rift Valley which is the conjunction of the African and Indian Tectontic Plates, forming a spreading boundary...