Imagine stepping into water and bobbing up like a cork, so easily that you could lie back and read a book. That really happens in the Dead Sea!
A lake below sea level
Despite its name, the Dead Sea is actually a lake. It lies in West Asia, with Jordan on its eastern shore and Israel and the West Bank on its western shore. Its main source of water is the Jordan River. But no river flows out of the lake. Water can leave only by evaporating in the heat.
The shores of the Dead Sea are the lowest land on Earth. The lake’s surface is more than 400 metres below sea level. Most beaches are right at sea level, so the Dead Sea’s shore is far, far lower than any beach you have ever visited!
Salty enough to float
When water evaporates, the salt it carries stays behind. Over time, this has made the Dead Sea extremely salty. Ordinary sea water is about 3.5 per cent salt. Dead Sea water is more than 30 per cent salt, about nine to ten times saltier than the ocean!
All that dissolved salt makes the water much denser (heavier for the same amount) than normal water. Your body is lighter than the same amount of this dense water, so the water pushes you up. People float without any rings or floats at all.
Why “dead”?
The water is so salty that fish and plants cannot live in it. A fish that drifts in from the Jordan River cannot survive in such salty water. Only a few kinds of tiny, salt-loving microbes manage to survive.
The Dead Sea is slowly drying up. People in the region take water from the rivers that feed it, for drinking and farming, so less water reaches the lake.
Try this: With an adult, fill two glasses with water. Stir lots of salt into one of them until no more dissolves. Gently place a raw egg in each glass. What happens? How is this like the Dead Sea?