The Dead Sea Graben: Geomorphology of the lowest spot on Earth

The Dead Sea is a hypersaline, dense terminal lake, lying 422 m below sea level in the lowest continental depression on the Earth. The rift margins bear a rich record of lake terraces and additional markers of regressive beach lines. A successi on of telescopic alluvial fans progrades toward the lake, partly deeply dissected. Mount Sedom is an exposed head of an active, rising salt diapir, with a developed karst system. The young motions along the Dead Sea transform are indicated by a wide range of morphological field evidences, including spectacular soft sediment deformations. Nowadays the Dead Sea level is rapidly declining, making the area a unique natural field laboratory for studying, in real time, the processes of channel entrenchment and cross-sectional shape evolution.