Dead Sea Fun

How the Dead Sea Salt Harvesting Project Will Function

The salt harvesting project in pool 5 in the southern Dead Sea will be one of the biggest engineering projects in Israel in the next few years. According to estimates by Israel Chemicals Ltd. (TASE: ICL), the project will include construction of infrastructure totaling approximately NIS 2.2 billion, and the cost of the project as a whole will be NIS 3.8 billion.

The project will be managed by a special company owned by Dead Sea Works. The company will employ directly about 300 employees, and according to senior managers at Israel Chemicals it will provide work indirectly to some 2,500 people: truck drivers, maintenance personnel, mechanics, engineers, architects, electricians, control personnel, and the list goes on.

Read the full article at Globes.co.il

Israel Chemicals Ltd. (ICL) to Pay to Save Dead Sea

The Finance Ministry has reached a deal with industrialists to rehabilitate the Dead Sea, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz announced in an interview with state-run Voice of Israel radio. Steinitz signed the deal with Israel Corporation (Dead Sea Works) chairman Amir Elstein Tuesday night.

Under the proposal, mineral salt that is rising from beneath the surface of the lake's waters will be harvested and ground up for use in manufacturing.

The government will pay 10 percent of the cost of the salt harvesting in the lake's southern basin. Israel Corporation subsidiary Israel Chemicals Ltd. will pay the remaining 90 percent, totaling some NIS 3.04 billion.

Read the full article at IsraelNationalNews.com

Dead Sea Agreement Sparks Outcry - update on 30th December at Globes.co.il

ICL CEO Responds: We Wanted to Avoid Long lLegal Fight - update on 30th December at Globes.co.il

Steinitz Threatens to Create 'Sheshinski 2' - update on 26th December at JerusalemPost.com

Flash Flood Chasing Near the Dead Sea

Driving to the Dead Sea in summer is a dry, dry, dry experience...but, in the winter rainy season, look out for flash floods. Much needed water - but be very cautious - dry river beds fill up IN SECONDS. Let it rain, rain, rain!

Read the full article at LifeinIsraelBlogspot.com

Stunning Aerial Photos of Dead Sea Salt Formations

Start your day with a breathtaking dose of Dead Sea beauty!

View the photos

Descent to the Dead Sea on Ma'ale Yair's Path - WOW!

For experts only!

Breathtaking helmet cam footage of a biker on the Ma'ale Yair path to the Dead Sea.

Dead Sea Scrolls Coming to the Netherlands

After three years of negotiations, the Drents Museum in Assen has reached an agreement with Israel which has paved the way for the Dead Sea Scrolls to be brought to the Netherlands. In 2013, the ancient texts will be on display at the museum.

Watch the video at RadioNetherlandsWorldwide

Low Tech-Design -417: Bezalel at the Dead Sea

"We are reclaiming crafts," said Haim Parness, Head of the Department of Industrial Design at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, as we stood on the shore of the Dead Sea where students, faculty, and their families gathered for the 7th Low Tech Design -417 workshops. The department hosts a week long seminar each year, which includes a lecture series at Bezalel, followed by a two day sojourn at the Dead Sea, to explore traditional crafts and methods.

This year's theme was "Dinnerware & Food," with lectures by Bezalel faculty and international guests. See a picture of the solar oven!

Read the full article at MidnightEast.com

Israeli Company to Dig for Uranium in the Negev

The Water and Energy Ministry (formerly the National Infrastructures Ministry) is set to grant a license to Gulliver Energy to search for uranium in the Negev. This is the first time uranium mining will be taking place in Israel. The chairman of Gulliver Energy (formerly known as Urieli) is former Mossad chief Meir Dagan.

The uranium search will center on an area in the southern Negev, where oil exploration is being conducted by the Zerach exploration company. That exploration is taking place near the Dead Sea, at the Maya exploration site, south of Tzuk Tamrur, another exploration site near Arad.

Read the full article at IsraelNationalNews.com

Free E-Book - Dead Sea Scrolls: Discovery and Meaning

The Biblical Archaeology Society has just released a newly updated edition of its free eBook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Discovery and Meaning. This eBook explores the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and what they tell us about the Bible, Christianity and Judaism. And new to this edition, they spotlight three of the most famous of the scrolls - the War Scroll, the Temple Scroll and the Book of Enoch - focusing on the significance of each.

Download the ebook at BiblicalArchaeology.org

Building a Solar Kitchen on the Banks of the Dead Sea

Antto Melasniemi, a culinary designer in Finland, will come to Israel again and build a solar kitchen at the Dead Sea, as part of an annual seminar held by the department of industrial design at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. Within the ecological context, Melasniemi aims to explore certain questions as part of this project, such as what is a kitchen and what is cooking, in relation to nature and to human nature.

Read the full article at Haaretz.com

Dead Sea Scrolls' 10 Commandments Reaches New York

The Ten Commandments parchment of the Dead Sea Scrolls is on display in New York City's Times Square for 10 days for the first time ever. It is only the third time that Israel has allowed the scrolls to leave the country.

The leather parchment will return to Israel after the "Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times" display at Discovery Times Square, which began last Thursday. Most of the exhibition continues until March, but the parchment of the Ten Commandments will make its way back to Israel January 2.

Read the full article at IsraelNationalNews.com

Status of the Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Study Program

Detailed progress reports about the Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Study Program are now available on the WorldBank.org Website.

View a Question and Answer Sheet (Updated 13 December 2011) - pdf

Two Dead Sea Proposals Pass Preliminary Readings

The [Israeli] Knesset approved in a preliminary reading two bills proposed by MK Moshe Matalon (Israel Beiteinu) that would authorize a full salt harvest of the southern Dead Sea and charge 90 percent of the cost of the harvest to Dead Sea Works.

These extra royalties on the company would be sent directly to a special fund designated for Dead Sea rehabilitation. The bill passed with 45 MKs in favor and zero against, and it will move on to a first reading in the Economics Committee.

Read the full article at JerusalemPost.com

Israel Chemicals Ltd Shares Drop to Lowest in More Than Two Years

Israel Chemicals Ltd., which extracts minerals from the Dead Sea to make fertilizer and potash, declined to the lowest in more than two years amid speculation slowing global growth will drive food prices lower.

The shares declined 2.3 percent to 35.25 shekels at the 4:30 p.m. close in Tel Aviv, the lowest level since April 2009.

"There is a worry that a worsening macro economy on a global basis will bring down demand for grain and food," said Gilad Alper, an analyst at Excellence Nessuah Investment House Ltd. in Ramat Gan.

Read the full article at BusinessWeek.com

How About a Calming Cave in Every Neighborhood?

Soon, Dead Sea Works is going to be dredging up millions of pounds of salt from the southern area of the Dead Sea - the stuff should be dirt cheap! How about building "calming caves" in every neighborhood? What would countries be like if everyone "chilled out" before getting in their cars or going to work. Yeow...there's a lovely thought!

"Whether you have a dermatological condition or trouble sleeping, the Corpo Calma salt cave offers a natural way to unwind your mind and heal your body, finds NAOMI LEACH".

See what a calming cave looks like at Cyprus-Mail.com

The Not-So-Dead Sea

Calling the Dead Sea "dead" is a misnomer. The inland salt lake located at the lowest spot on earth, straddling Israel and Jordan, does contain life. It doesn't hold big fish, or attract seagulls looking for a drink, but a new study suggests that it plays host to a potentially rich number of microorganisms, some never before described by science.

A few days after the American photographer Spencer Tunick enlisted 1,000 volunteers to "strip" for the Dead Sea and be photographed, an Israeli and German research team announced some exciting findings from a summer research expedition: microorganisms that present themselves as photosynthetic microbial mats about 150 meters from shore, 30 meters down in the mineral-rich sea.

Read the full article at Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Eco-Tourism - Field School at Ein Gedi

Situated in a most remarkable scenic spot overlooking both the Ein Gedi waterfalls AND the Dead Sea, Ein Gedi Field School is surrounded by some of the most breathtaking desert wilderness trails in the Middle East.

Ein Gedi National Park is known as a natural oasis, a well known recreational and hiking area with natural and historical sites going back to Biblical times and a major wildlife preserve.

In addition to Ein Gedi and the Dead Sea, Ein Gedi Field School is the perfect home base to experience the wonders of the caves of Qumeran, Massada, and the history of survival, settlement and agriculture under extreme climatic conditions.

Read the full article at Teva.org

Amazing Satellite Images of the Dead Sea - in 2006 and 2011

...two satellite images that show how the salty inland sea has changed over the past five years.

The orbital snapshot above was taken by the ASTER multispectral imager aboard NASA's Terra satellite in 2006. The picture below is a mosaic from Google Earth, based on orbital imagery provided this spring from DigitalGlobe, GeoEye and the French space agency CNES.

Read the full article at MSNBC.com

Israel Harley Davidson Riders Club in the Dead Sea

Photo by Ilan Mizrachi, November 28, 2011.

See a larger photo at Israel Ministry of Tourism

Cores Reveal When Dead Sea 'Died'

Sediments drilled from beneath the Dead Sea reveal that this most remarkable of water bodies all but disappeared 120,000 years ago.

It is a discovery of high concern say scientists because it demonstrates just how dry the Middle East can become during Earth's warm phases.

A consortium of investigators from Israel, the US, Germany, Japan, Switzerland and Norway drilled two cores into the Dead Sea's bed in late 2010. One of them was centred close to the very deepest part of the lake.

At 235m down, the consortium hit a layer of small, rounded pebbles - what the team believes are the deposits of an ancient beach. Given the location of the core, this would suggest the Dead Sea had a complete, or near, dry-down at some point in the past.

Read the full article at BBC News

More information at NationalGeographic.com

Dead Sea Microorganism Helps Light the Way to Understanding the Brain

Harvard researcher creates neurons that light up as they fire.

In a scientific first that potentially could shed new light on how signals travel in the brain, how learning alters neural pathways, and might lead to speedier drug development, scientists at Harvard have created genetically-altered neurons that light up as they fire.

The work, led by John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences Adam Cohen, and described in Nature Methods on Nov. 28, involved using a gene from a Dead Sea microorganism to produce a protein that, when exposed to the electrical signal in a neuron, fluoresces, allowing researchers to trace the propagation of signals through the cell.

Read the full article at Wired.com

More at EurekAlert!.com