Dead Sea

The Dead Sea is a salt lake in the Jordan Rift Valley. Its shore, at roughly 430 metres below sea level, is the lowest land on Earth. Its water is about ten times saltier than the ocean, so dense that people float in it without trying, lying back as if in an armchair.^[1] It is called a sea, is actually a lake, and sits below the level of the sea, which makes it wrong about itself in three directions at once.

Floating

Because the water is so dense, swimming in the normal way is awkward: legs bob up to the surface and the swimmer ends up on their back whether they planned to or not. Visitors are traditionally photographed floating while reading a newspaper, which is the only known case of reading being made easier by water.^[2]

Visitors are advised not to put their heads under or get the water in their eyes, which stings badly.

Dead, mostly

The water is too salty for fish or plants, which is where the name comes from. It is not completely lifeless, however: certain bacteria and other microbes live in it, and after unusually rainy winters, blooms of algae have turned parts of it red. The Dead Sea is therefore mostly dead, occasionally less so.

Its level has been falling by about a metre a year in recent decades, as water from the river that feeds it is used upstream. The lowest land on Earth is, as a result, getting lower, which is the only record in the world that breaks itself.

See also

• Lake – what it actually is
• Ocean – much less salty
• List of things that are wet – where it is listed, saltily

References

1. Brine, B. (2001). Lowest of the Low. Salt Press.
2. Buoy, C. (1998). “Reading While Floating”. Journal of Dense Water 10: 1.
3. Algae, R. (1992). Mostly Dead. Rift Books.