Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Dead Sea drying: A new low-point for Earth


Still Waters

Recommended Posts

The Dead Sea, the salty lake located at the lowest point on Earth, is gradually shrinking under the heat of the Middle Eastern sun. For those who live on its shores it's a slow-motion crisis - but finding extra water to sustain the sea will be a huge challenge.

If there's one thing everyone knows about the Dead Sea it is that you can't sink in it.

It is eight or nine times saltier than the oceans of the world - so dense and mineral rich that it doesn't even feel like normal water, more like olive oil mixed with sand.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-36477284

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
Quote
Until the 1950s, the flow of fresh water equaled the rate of evaporation, and Dead Sea water levels held steady. Then in the 1960s, Israel built an enormous pumping station on the banks of the Sea of Galilee, diverting water from the upper Jordan, the Dead Sea’s prime source, into a pipeline system that supplies water throughout the country. To make matters worse, in the 1970s Jordan and Syria began diverting the Yarmouk, the lower Jordan River’s main tributary.

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-dying-of-the-dead-sea-70079351/#MHykLUbZ5SDvi2dv.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

 

Harte

Edited by Harte
What the hell you lookin at?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 hours ago, Still Waters said:

It is eight or nine times saltier than the oceans of the world - so dense and mineral rich that it doesn't even feel like normal water, more like olive oil mixed with sand.

Eight or nine times?  Sea Water is 3% salt.  Eight or nine times that is 24 to 27% salt.  Limestone precipitates at 30%.  Something doesn't add up here.

Doug

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Which is more soluble in water? There's your answer.

Harte

Link to comment
Share on other sites

All the salinity is not due to calcium chloride. Stuff adds up fine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, socrates.junior said:

All the salinity is not due to calcium chloride. Stuff adds up fine.

At what concentration does calcium chloride precipitate?

Doug

P.S.:  I drove through one of those wind farms we talked about in a previous thread.  The rotors were turning at four different speeds between about once a minute and ten times a minute.  What do you think was going on?

Doug

Edited by Doug1029
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Notwithstanding the fact that calcium carbonate is what would precipitate to form limestone, the concentration of calcium chloride comprises a minority of the salinity of the lake. At greater depths, of course, one would expect greater concentrations of salts to enable some precipitation at least.

As far as at what concentration it precipitates, I'm honestly unsure, mostly because of a lack of knowledge of how other mitigating factors such as other dissolved metallic ions, sulfates, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and whatever else would affect the behavior.

P.S. It appears as if you observed the rotors were turning at different speeds. Were the rotors of the same size? Was the wind pattern completely uniform throughout the wind farm? (I can answer that one...no it wasn't.) I myself drove through some huge Texas wind farms recently. One farm was completely immobile, while several miles down the road a different farm was turning quite happily.

I also thought the contrast between the nodding donkeys on the ground with extensive wind farms in the background was oddly poetic. Not that I'm a poet. But I think a great photograph could be taken of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, socrates.junior said:

Notwithstanding the fact that calcium carbonate is what would precipitate to form limestone, the concentration of calcium chloride comprises a minority of the salinity of the lake. At greater depths, of course, one would expect greater concentrations of salts to enable some precipitation at least.

As far as at what concentration it precipitates, I'm honestly unsure, mostly because of a lack of knowledge of how other mitigating factors such as other dissolved metallic ions, sulfates, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and whatever else would affect the behavior.

P.S. It appears as if you observed the rotors were turning at different speeds. Were the rotors of the same size? Was the wind pattern completely uniform throughout the wind farm? (I can answer that one...no it wasn't.) I myself drove through some huge Texas wind farms recently. One farm was completely immobile, while several miles down the road a different farm was turning quite happily.

I also thought the contrast between the nodding donkeys on the ground with extensive wind farms in the background was oddly poetic. Not that I'm a poet. But I think a great photograph could be taken of it.

Apparently I'm not communicating again.  Calcium carbonate precipitates after evaporation of about 30% of the water.  But I haven't got a clue about what concentrations calcium chloride and sodium chloride precipitate at.  Normal sea water is about 3% salt, so somewhere above that.  Could either of those reach 27%?

 

Rotors were of the same size.  I take it the slowest one was undergoing some sort of maintenance, but there were at least three other rotation rates involved.  My daughter has a picture of a drilling rig with windmills in the background.  She's in West Virginia at a well out in the middle of nowhere.  The roads were cut by the floods.  They've got everything they need to drill, but no food.  Stay tuned.

Doug

Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, Doug1o29 said:

Apparently I'm not communicating again.  Calcium carbonate precipitates after evaporation of about 30% of the water.  But I haven't got a clue about what concentrations calcium chloride and sodium chloride precipitate at.  Normal sea water is about 3% salt, so somewhere above that.  Could either of those reach 27%?

 

Rotors were of the same size.  I take it the slowest one was undergoing some sort of maintenance, but there were at least three other rotation rates involved.  My daughter has a picture of a drilling rig with windmills in the background.  She's in West Virginia at a well out in the middle of nowhere.  The roads were cut by the floods.  They've got everything they need to drill, but no food.  Stay tuned.

 

What initial concentration of Ca and CO3 ions are you assuming to get that number? (Because CaCO3 itself is relatively insoluble.) I'm finding something slightly different for the precipitation of calcium carbonate...

https://manoa.hawaii.edu/exploringourfluidearth/chemical/chemistry-and-seawater/salty-sea/weird-science-types-salts-seawater

That says it precipitates at ca. 50% evaporation. Of course, the beginning concentration of ions is obviously going to affect at what evaporation anything precipitates at. (Hence my question.) As well as a host of other factors. Especially in a hypersaline environment such as the Dead Sea. I assume that salts (of various affinities) are constantly precipitating out of the Dead Sea. And being re-dissolved. And precipitating again. Etc.

Also, seawater (assuming a gross average) and Dead Sea water have very different concentrations of different ions.

What exactly is your initial quote asking? What doesn't add up? There are different types of salts (the Dead Sea salinity is not entirely due to calcium salts...and neither is seawater, of course).

On ‎6‎/‎22‎/‎2016 at 9:13 AM, Doug1o29 said:

Eight or nine times?  Sea Water is 3% salt.  Eight or nine times that is 24 to 27% salt.  Limestone precipitates at 30%.  Something doesn't add up here.

Doug

 As it is, NaCl has been precipitating out of the Dead Sea since 1979 (via "Water, salt, and energy balances of the Dead Sea", Lensky et al., 2005). Trolling through a maze of references, apparently aragonite is (and was, the Lisan deposits) also seasonally precipitate from the Dead Sea, leaving varve deposits.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, socrates.junior said:

I also thought the contrast between the nodding donkeys on the ground with extensive wind farms in the background was oddly poetic. Not that I'm a poet. But I think a great photograph could be taken of it.

Quixotean.

Windmills turning at different speeds can indicate that some are having power drawn from them (the slower ones are doing more work) while other ones are not.

Harte

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
On ‎6‎/‎23‎/‎2016 at 6:30 AM, Winter Summer said:

 

Wikipedia - Dead Sea:

"With 34.2% salinity (in 2011), it is one of the world's saltiest bodies of water..."

 

I just found this post.  The answer was under our noses all along.  Thanks, WS.

Doug

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, Harte said:

Quixotean.

Windmills turning at different speeds can indicate that some are having power drawn from them (the slower ones are doing more work) while other ones are not.

Harte

Power must be fed onto the grid at the same frequency as the grid.  If the rotor turns at the wrong speed, the result could be disastrous.  Computers on each tower adjust the blades to keep them turning at a constant rate so that power of the right frequency is generated.

Doug

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.