JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Geologists surveying the ecological damage of sinkholes at the Dead Sea released a remarkable live clip showing the formation of a sinkhole near the sea. In the past year some 500 new sinkholes have formed, causing ecological disruption and significant economic damage to the tourism industry at the Dead Sea.
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Land made of a soft underground rock layer, such as rock salt around the Dead Sea or limestone in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, are often riddled with sinkholes, since the rock layer is easily dissolved, causing the salt underneath to cave in.
The accepted theoretical explanation for the phenomenon occuring at the Dead Sea is that a drop in the level of salty water enables the penetration of fresh water into a salt layer that lies between 5 and 60 meters underground. Fresh water’s high capacity for dissolving salt creates large empty cavities underground. Since the Dead Sea is constantly experiencing drops in the level of saline water due to excess evaporation for the sake of mineral deposits as well as a lack of new water sources for the sea, the process has become more pronounced in recent years.