Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 81:323 (Jul 1924)
Article: Geology Of The Dead Sea
Author: Alfred Ely Day

BSac 81:322 (April 1924) p. 264

Geology Of The Dead Sea

Alfred Ely Day

During the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods much of what we now call the Near East was part of an enlarged Mediterranean which covered Syria and Palestine and much of Egypt and Arabia and Asia Minor, and also stretched eastward over the Caucasus and Himalaya mountains to the Pacific. It was in the early part of the Tertiary Period that extensive portions of the bottom of this sea were lifted up and became land. The movement was very slow. Here and there great wrinkles or folds were produced, constituting the Lebanon and other mountains. These were not simple folds, but were complicated with subordinate folds and frequent fractures. Such fractures are nearly vertical cracks or fissures, sometimes of slight extent, sometimes extending for miles and of great depth. There is often a differential movement between the two sides of the fissure, constituting a fault. A series of tremendous faults marks the line of the ‘Arabah, the Dead Sea, the Jordan, and the Sea of Galilee, from which it extends north by Lake Hulah, and thence, passing to the west side of Mount Hermon, follows the plain of Coele-Syria between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and possibly is further indicated by the River Orontes in north Syria. Moreover, it is considered by eminent geologists that this series, which, for the sake of brevity, may be called the Jordan Valley Fault, is only a continuation of the great African rift valley, which, beginning with Lake Nyassa south of the equator, includes Lakes Tanganyika, Albert Edward, and Albert, while an eastern branch runs through Lake Rodolph, and then, passing between Abyssinia and Somaliland, follows the line of the Red Sea and the Gulf of ‘Akabah to the ‘Arabah, and thence to the Dead Sea and the Jordan. A rift valley (or trough fault) is a series of approximately parallel faults which include between them a block or slice of the earth’s crust which is let down relatively to the earth masses on the

BSac 81:322 (April 1924) p. 265

BSac 81:322 (April 1924) p. 266

two sides. It is to such earth movements that the Dead Sea owes its origin.

As stated above, the whole region of Syria and Eastern and Western Palestine was sea in the Jurassic periods. The elevation which took place in the Tertiary Period did not affect all areas alike. In the east, the strata were but little disturbed, and became the high plains of the Syrian Desert. In the west, there were great foldings which produced the mountains of Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon and Hermon and the mountains of Western Palestine. A series of enormous fractures between the strata on the east and those on the west resulted in the Jordan-Dead Sea depression....