What does the Dead Sea mean?

In midsummer, I went to Jordan and was lucky enough to see the Dead Sea. Although it is not as ancient and deep as the Nile, nor as magnificent as the waters of the Yangtze River, it welcomes tourists from all over the world with its unique charm and unique treasures.

Treasure hunt in the dead sea

The car meandered along the rolling mountains in western Amman. Although it is midsummer, it makes people feel cool and windy. It took about 50 minutes to drive down the hill. Suddenly, a huge road monument written in English and Arabic attracted everyone's attention. It reads: "The Dead Sea, located in the West Asia Rift between Palestine and Jordan, is 80 kilometers long from north to south, 4.8- 17 kilometers wide and covers an area of 1020 square kilometers. This is the lowest land in the world, 392 meters below sea level. "

We wound down the slope, and the more we went down, the more novel the scenery became. The scorching sun in midsummer shines on the cliffs on the roadside, and all kinds of rock formations reflect different colors, which is dazzling. When the car drove into the bottom, its eyes suddenly lit up. Looking around, it was a steep cliff just now, but now it has become a flat and wide terrain, with a scene of "the sky is gray, the wilderness is vast, and the wind blows the valley low".

"Here we are, here we are." Jordan's friend Mr. Hadi stood up and told everyone. I'll get out of the car. Standing on the shore of the Dead Sea: But there are no flowers and trees on the long shore, and there are no plankton such as fish and shrimp in the quiet water. Only lonely and cold lakes are located at the lowest place in the world.

I followed the crowd to the lake, where the breeze was Xu Lai and the waves rippled. Looking around, the shore of the Dead Sea is blue and clear except for the white saline-alkali soil. Our Jordanian friends told us with great interest that the source of the Dead Sea is mainly the Jordan River. The valleys from lake tiberias in the north to the Dead Sea in the south are very low, mostly below sea level. It did not gradually rise above sea level until the south of the Dead Sea 130 km. You see, there are steep rock walls on both sides of the rift valley here, and the east coast is mostly composed of colorful sandstone, which is about 750 meters high. The west bank is made of limestone and is 570 meters high. Generally speaking, the Dead Sea can be divided into north and south parts. There is a peninsula extending into the lake on the east coast in the middle, which divides it into two areas with different shades and sizes. The northern area is about 780 square kilometers, the southern area is more than 260 square kilometers, and the deepest part is no more than 8 meters.

My friend paused, and then told me that the amount of water that rivers inject into the Dead Sea every year is about 532 million cubic meters. The Dead Sea has no exit, so rivers can only enter. In addition, the climate in the area where the Dead Sea is located is hot and dry, the river water evaporates very quickly, and salt remains after water evaporation. As time goes by, the Dead Sea has become the saltiest lake in the world.

According to scientific determination, the salt content of the Dead Sea is as high as 23%-25%. That is to say, the salt content of 10 kg seawater is more than 2 kg, which is 7 times that of general seawater. Because of the high salt content, the proportion of water is very large, which exceeds the proportion of human body. No wonder people float as soon as they enter the water, even if they lie flat on the water, they will not sink. Therefore, anyone who goes sightseeing in the Dead Sea, regardless of whether he can swim or not, must personally experience the interest brought by this wonderful landscape of nature. In addition, due to the high salt content in the Dead Sea, coupled with high salinity and lack of oxygen, aquatic animals such as fish can not survive, and coastal vegetation can not survive. The lake is "lifeless" and has become a silent, desolate and indifferent world, a lifeless sea. So people also call it the Dead Sea. It is the largest salt storage in the world, and the reserve of edible salt is enough for more than 4 billion people in the world to eat in 2000.

scenic spot

Decades ago, the Dead Sea was desolate and nobody cared about it, but now it has become a treasure trove under development. The Jordanian government funded the construction of a large potash plant and some chemical plants near the Dead Sea to develop these precious natural resources. At the same time, some modern swimming pools, high-class hotels and amusement places have been built.

According to scientific research, the therapeutic function of the Dead Sea Lake is stronger than that of hot springs, so tourists from all over the world come from afar. Many minerals contained in the Dead Sea have medical value, especially for treating skin inflammation such as psoriasis. Some patients with skin diseases have been cured for a long time in big hospitals and come here for medical treatment.

We walked along the shore of the Dead Sea and saw the lake in the distance, with hundreds of colorful tents and umbrellas. Under the umbrella, on the shore and in the water, some tourists from all over the world lie flat peeling oranges on the water, and some sit on white loungers by the lake to listen to music. Photographers with cameras ran around shooting this charming scenery. Many tourists, male and female, invited beauticians to paint the black mud of the Dead Sea unique to this place on their faces, and some of them were all black. The friend looked puzzled and explained with a smile: Although this black mud is dirty, it contains minerals such as iodine, sulfur, sodium, potassium, iron and calcium. Many patients from Europe and North America came to Wan Li for medical mud treatment. They are usually covered with black mud, and then lie on the beach and enjoy the sunshine bath, or soak in the pool where lake mud and water are mixed into mud. It is said that this strange dead sea medicine mud can treat many human diseases.

Mr. Hadi said that although the natural environment of the Dead Sea is very poor, the tourism department of the Jordanian government used its brains to develop the commodity economy with science and technology and successfully created a way to make money. When the tourism in the Middle East countries is depressed, the tourism in Jordan is booming. With its harsh natural and geographical environment, the Dead Sea has become an important pillar of Jordan's tourism industry. Because of the warm winter here, the water and black mud of the Dead Sea have unique medical functions, attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world every year. My friend Hardy joked, didn't you come all the way? At this moment, I look at the tourists from all over the world covered in black mud, and I can't help but fall into deep reverie. I sincerely hope that the inexhaustible natural cornucopia of the Dead Sea will bring more wealth and happiness to the Jordanian people.

Drifting in the Dead Sea

After repeated persuasion by friends, the guest complied with the host's wishes. I got up my courage, put on a life buoy and went into the water along the shallowest part of the lake. I just entered the water, and I can't help but have a wonderful feeling. I only felt a thick layer of grease on my back. In the blink of an eye, my body lay flat on the dead lifeless lake. At this moment, lying on the quiet lake, I suddenly have an impulse: I want to taste the dead sea. So I got up the courage to put my index finger into the lake and send it to the tip of my tongue. "Taste" is better than listening! This famous Dead Sea Lake is really salty. It seems that God gave all the salt in the world to this water area of 1000 square kilometers.

There is no noise of the beach and no plankton here. You can't pick up colorful shells, insects, fish, birds, trees and flowers on the wide lakeshore. Everything is dead, but it has another kind of magic endowed by nature, attracting curious tourists from all over the world.