MicroFactzzz#0176 · 🌍 Strange Earth
You Physically Can't Sink in This Sea — But You Can Get Salt Burns From It
The Dead Sea is so salty that the human body floats on its surface almost effortlessly, while the basin holding it keeps dropping lower every year.
The Dead Sea, on the border between Israel and Jordan, has salinity several times higher than average oceans, making the water dense enough that the human body floats on the surface with almost no swimming effort at all.
That extremely high concentration of salt and minerals also means the Dead Sea has essentially no fish or plant life, which is where its name comes from — though specialized microorganisms adapted to the extremely salty environment do live on its floor and shores.
The Dead Sea's water level drops noticeably year after year, mainly because water from the Jordan River that feeds it is diverted for agricultural and domestic use, making it one of the fastest-shrinking large bodies of water in the world.
The surface of the Dead Sea sits at the lowest point of dry land on Earth accessible without specialized equipment, well below the level of the world's oceans.
Sources
- General knowledge / encyclopedic sources
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Krulicza Nora
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