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The Dead Sea is one of the world's saltiest bodies of water. Little if nothing can live in such high salinity. Or so scientists thought. The recent discovery of fish and other marine life swimming in Dead Sea sinkholes is baffling researchers. It's also been seen by some as a sign of a biblical prophecy foretold by Ezekiel in the Old Testament. So, is this remarkable revelation proof that one of the most ancient lakes on the planet can sustain life, or is it an ominous portent of impending End-of-Days?
Click through and decide what you believe.
The fabled Dead Sea is a salt lake set 427 m (1,400 ft) below sea level—Earth's lowest elevation on land.
This extraordinary natural wonder lies in the Jordan Rift Valley and is bordered by Jordan to the east and the West Bank and Israel to the west.
The Dead Sea has been in existence for three million years. Its basin was filled by water from the Mediterranean Sea before tectonic activity lifted the land to the west, isolating it from its original water source.
The Dead Sea was originally part of an ancient, much larger lake that extended to the Sea of Galilee.
Over time, the Dead Sea's level has fluctuated dramatically, rising to its highest level around 26,000 years ago. But some 18,000 years ago its outlet to the sea evaporated.
Currently, this unique body of water is 306 m (1,003 ft) at its deepest. However, the Dead Sea has been rapidly evaporating approximately 1 m (3 ft) per year.
This is due mostly to the siphoning off just below the Sea of Galilee of huge amounts of water from the River Jordan by Israel, Jordan, and Syria to meet their needs in this arid region.
This rapidly dwindling body of water has revealed numerous brackish sinkholes along the Dead Sea coast.
The Dead Sea has a salinity of 34%. To put that percentage into perspective, Earth's oceans have an average salinity of 3.5%. The Dead Sea is therefore around 9.6 times as salty as any ocean.
Only during exceptionally wet winters—a rare phenomenon in this day and age—does the salinity level drop, to something like 30%.
Ordinarily, therefore, the Dead Sea's high salinity prevents fish and aquatic plants from living in it.
But researchers from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), working in collaboration with scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Marine Microbiology in Germany, discovered during a diving expedition deep freshwater springs on the Dead Sea floor that feed into this rapidly dwindling body of water.
Using specialist equipment, the diving team found new types of microorganisms growing around fissures in the sea floor.
The biggest surprise, though, was the identification of fish and other marine life spotted in sinkholes located on the shoreline. The revelation was made by Noam Bedein, an Israeli photojournalist working with the Dead Sea Revival Project.
Fish have never thrived in the Dead Sea. And the 6th-century Madaba Map clearly illustrates why. Part of a floor mosaic in the early Byzantine church of Saint George in Madaba, Jordan, the map shows fish swimming down the Jordan River and then turning around once they hit the saline-saturated lake.
The reported sightings of fish in a Dead Sea sinkhole has prompted some to recall the Old Testament words of priest and prophet Ezekiel, who foresaw the Dead Sea flourishing into life in his End-of-Days prophecy. According to Ezekiel 47: 8-9, "there shall be a very great multitude of fish."
In the Scriptures, the Dead Sea itself is said to represent the wrath of God.
God's anger directed on Sodom and Gomorrah, the two biblical cities located near the southern end of the Dead Sea, changed the area's fertility to a desolate expanse that represented His judgment on sin.
"But one day," according to Ezekiel 47:8-11, "the Dead Sea will live again. When Jesus rules the earth in the Millennial Kingdom, water will flow from Jerusalem's Temple Mount and fishermen will line the banks of the Dead Sea."
Antiquity was certainly aware of the Dead Sea's extraordinarily high salinity. During the Jewish Revolt in 68 CE, the Roman Emperor Vespasian tested the sea's legendary buoyancy by throwing a group of Jewish captives who couldn't swim into the water and watched them bob back up to the surface.
The Dead Sea's real enemy is evaporation. The sea lies in a desert. Rainfall is scant and irregular. Evaporation of its waters—estimated at about 1,400 mm (55 in) per year—has resulted in its surface area receding to 605 sq km (234 sq mi) from around 1,050 sq km in 1900 (pictured).
On average, the Jordan River is 10 m (33 ft) wide and 2 m (6.5 ft) deep. One hundred years ago, its dimensions measured 18 m (60 ft) at its widest, and anywhere between 15–60 m (50–200 ft) deep.
The River Jordan is the only major water source flowing into the Dead Sea. The smaller Wadi Mujib river, biblical Arnon, also empties into the sea, as do a number of perennial spring-fed streams.
And it is the groundwater springs that discharge from the seafloor that have researchers especially intrigued. These water sources empty into the sea in an upward jet-like, plume flow.
Their studies have revealed a network of complex freshwater springs impressive in length and as deep as 30 m (90 ft). These fissures exit the seafloor through craters as large as 15 m (45 ft) in diameter and 20 m (60 ft) deep.
Scientists have known for decades that the Dead Sea isn't entirely bereft of life. In certain areas, microorganisms representing several different species carpet the seafloor.
But it's those sediment microorganisms never before found in the Dead Sea that have marine biologists scratching their heads in delighted bewilderment.
The species of fish recorded by photographer Noam Bedein has yet to be officially identified. Meanwhile, the closest any known fish has come to the ancient salt lake is the Dead Sea toothcarp. Endemic to the Dead Sea basin, the one seen in this image is cared for at Jordan's Fifa Nature Reserve, located some 60 km (36 mi) south of the Dead Sea. This tiny fish is so rare that it's listed as Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The Dead Sea is anything but dead, declares Noam Bedein: "It's the eight wonder of the world." And standing above its southern shore in Jordan is a geomorphological formation made of salt and rock that is said to be Lot's wife. In the Bible, Lot's wife is a figure first mentioned in Genesis 19. The Book of Genesis describes how she became a pillar of salt after she glanced back at Sodom burning. Symbolic, perhaps, of science and biblical prophecy coming together?
Sources: (Dead Sea Revival Project) (European Space Agency) (EARTH Magazine) (NBC News) (NASA Earth Observatory) (Mirror) (ScienceDaily) (IUCN)
See also: Prophecies about the Old Testament Messiah that were fulfilled
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LIFESTYLE Curiosities
The Dead Sea is one of the world's saltiest bodies of water. Little if nothing can live in such high salinity. Or so scientists thought. The recent discovery of fish and other marine life swimming in Dead Sea sinkholes is baffling researchers. It's also been seen by some as a sign of a biblical prophecy foretold by Ezekiel in the Old Testament. So, is this remarkable revelation proof that one of the most ancient lakes on the planet can sustain life, or is it an ominous portent of impending End-of-Days?
Click through and decide what you believe.