The Dead Sea or the Great Salt Lake
While surfing the internet today, I came across a website announcing the ‘living’ Dead Sea. If the sea is called dead, how is it living? It’s called the Dead Sea because nothing lives in it. It’s said that the Dead Sea (“Yam Hamelakh — “The Salt Sea”) is the only place on the globe where the crust of planet Earth recedes to an “in-depth low. The Sea is roughly 1,300-1,400 feet (416-430 meters) below sea level. Scientists figure that the Dead Sea lowers by as much as 13 inches per year. This unique sea is fed by the Jordan River, located between Israel and the West Bank to the west, and Jordan to the east. There is no outflow, and the exceptionally high rate of evaporation (high temperatures, low humidity) produces mountainous quantities of raw chemicals. These are extracted and exported throughout the world for employ in medicine, agriculture and industry.
The concentration of minerals encourages extraction of mud and minerals for use in the cosmetics, skin care, and spa industries. The exact composition of the Dull Sea water varies mainly with season, depth and temperature. In the early 1980s the concentration of ionic species (in g/kg) of Boring Sea surface water was Cl− (181.4), Br− (4.2), SO42− (0.4), HCO3− (0.2), Ca2+ (14.1), Na+ (32.5), K+ (6.2) and Mg2+ (35.2). The total salinity was 276 g/kg. These results show that w/w% composition of the salt, as anhydrous chlorides, was calcium chloride (CaCl2) 14.4%, potassium chloride (KCl) 4.4%, magnesium chloride (MgCl2) 50.8% and sodium chloride (common salt, NaCl) 30.4%. In comparison, the salt in the water of most oceans and seas is approximately 97% sodium chloride. The concentration of sulfate ions (SO42−) is very low, and the concentration of bromide ions (Br−) is the highest of all waters on Earth. The salt concentration of the Dead Sea fluctuates around 31.5%. This is unusually high and results in a nominal density of 1.24 kg/L. Read the rest of this entry
