Blog: The Dead Sea

Thursday, August 13, 2015 |  Israel Today Staff

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Plant the Holy Land

The Dead Sea, a unique gift of nature with healing minerals, serves as a natural oasis of wellness and a source of health and beauty.

The Dead Sea is known for its extremely salty and mineral-rich water. The minerals have a healing effect on skin diseases such as eczema or psoriasis.

The Hebrew name "Yam HaMelach" from the Old Testament means "Salt Sea".

The Dead Sea covers an area of approximately 900 square kilometers and is a terminal lake in a drainless Valley situated between Jordan and Israel.

The climate in the Dead Sea valley is sunny all year round with low humidity. The average temperature in summer is 39° C and in winter 20° C. The water temperature ranges between 19 and 31° C.

The Dead Sea is one of the world's saltiest bodies of water with a salinity of about 34.2% compared to the the salinity of the Mediterranean at about 3.8%.

The most commonly found minerals in the Dead Sea are anhydrous chlorides with a weight percentage basis of, calcium chloride (CaCl2) 14.4%, potassium chloride (KCl) 4.4%, magnesium chloride (MgCl2) 50.8% and sodium chloride (NaCl) 30.4%. In comparison, the salt in the water of most oceans and seas is approximately 85% 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 waters also contain lose-degrading anaerobic bacteria resulting in its therapeutic properties.

In the last few decades the level of the Dead Sea has been dropping at the disturbing rate of approx. 1 meter per year. This tendency is as a result of reduced inflow to the Dead Sea from the Jordan River as a result of large-scale irrigation along the Jordan valley and generally low rainfall.

This is a blog post from "Plant the Holy Land" from our "Support Israel" section. We appreciate every donation. In order to help the Land of Israel and her residents see "Support Israel".

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