Abstract
The salinity of lakes is subject to variations imposed by climatic changes. These variations are recorded in the salinity profile of pore waters. Meromictic lakes, such as the Dead Sea, are a special case where waters which underlie the mixolimnion reflect salinity variations. In a sediment core from Dead Sea shallow waters, the salinity profile exhibited a minimum at about 1.9 m depth. It is shown by a diffusion model that this minimum can be attributed to lower salinities which prevailed at the sediment water interface for several decades around the turn of this century. No such minimum was observed in a sediment core from the deepest part of the lake where, during the last two centuries, the overlying brines had a constant salinity.
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Stiller, M., Kaushansky, P. & Carmi, I. Recent climatic changes recorded by the salinity of pore waters in the Dead Sea sediments. Hydrobiologia 103, 75–79 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00028431
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00028431