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Tour 2

Floods and sinkholes in the Nahal Tzalim fan: interrelationships between salt dissolution, liquefaction and transport of fine sediment in the karst system (proposed sinkhole park)

Gidi Bar, Itai Gabrieli, Iyad Soaed, Ran Nof

general description

This is a walking tour that is about 8 km long down and across the Nahal Tzalim fan that follows the development of the landscape in the most dynamic area along the Dead Sea coast. In the last ten years, the flow regime of the floodwaters in the fan has changed from an overhead flow directly to the Dead Sea, to draining the water into sinkholes at the bottom of the sea. The flow, their continued flow underground, and their emergence at the bottom of sinkholes that have been created in recent years near the coast. The process includes the melting of salt and the creation of an extensive karst system in the underground salt layer, land subsidence, liquefaction, transport of fine-grained sediment, and the creation of mud cones in the areas of emergence and salt chimneys in the shallow seawater In 2022, large amounts of Dead Sea water that leaked from the transmission channel of the Dead Sea factories to the evaporation ponds in the south were added to this system. This water is collected in the sinkholes and also originates in the coastal sinkholes alongside the flood water emanations. On the tour we will present the many morphological changes that have occurred in recent years and are occurring before our eyes as well. today, and we will linger along the salt phenomena on the beach. We will follow the water, between the absorption areas and the discharge areas, we will look at the various bodies of water in their many colors and discuss the differences between them. Confusions involved in this complex system.

Tour stops:

  1. Flood water absorption sites

  2. Abandoned channels downstream due to inundation of flood water upstream

  3. Salt phenomena along the coast

  4. Nabiah sinkholes ("cracks") with different water compositions

  5. Mud cones and evidence of liquefaction

  6. The feeding channel and the pumping station P-9 (will be provided by the MI personnel)

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