THE DEAD SEA as a BAROMETER

A Catastrophic rise in the oceans eustatic sea level occured approximately between the years 40 BC to 100 AD. as a result of an abnormal changing world climate. One piece of evidence for this occurence was a sudden and abnormal riseof  the Dead Sea level during this period, consisting of various morphological data, and dendrochronology. The  Dead Scrolls were found at these high watermarks possibly stowed away as a protection from the rising sea, rather than the general theory that their owners were hiding from the Roman armies . It may also not be a coincidence that Ygal Yadin found in precisely the same caves, artifacts from another, pagan age two thousand years earlier, when a similar rise of the sea level is estimated to have occured.  
The Dead Sea level behaves rather like a barometer. Normally the total quantity of catchment area water draining into the Dead Sea, equals the quantity of evaporated water over a given seasonal period. Since the Sea is a confined body of water, and since its surface area hardly changes at different sea levels, an increase or a decrease in catchment water draining into it, will only be reflected in a change of sea level. Thus the Dead Sea may provide us with quite an accurate indication of rainfall in any annual season. 


  Curve of Dead Sea levels between c 100 BC and 100 AD shows an abnormal rise of nearly 70 meters above the average sealevel

  During the first century BCE the Dead Sea rose dramatically from a norm of approx minus -390m to a high of minus -330m [below Mediterranean sea level]From morphological data gathered and historical documentation [Cippora Klein 1986] a graph of the Sea level could be constructed 

 


Ref: Cippora Klein : Fluctuations of the Dead Sea and climatic fluctuations in Erez-Israel during Historical times [submitted to the Hebrew University April 1986  

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MRBLOCH SALT ARCHIVE, is researching the significance, of SALT [NaCl] through the period 1000 BC . up to the Industrial Revolution.

For detailed references of statements made here, or Bibliography- Please mail: David Bloch -. MRBLOCH ARCHIVE -page under construction  


 

________________________________________________________ © 1996 MRBLOCH ARCHIVE - all rights reserved- David Bloch

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