Category: 7. Science

Paleontologists have announced the discovery of a new genus and species of early eusauropod dinosaur from the Jurassic period of China.

Named Huashanosaurus qini, the new dinosaur species is estimated to have been around 12 m (39 feet) long.

It lived in what is now China’s Guangxi autonomous region from the Early to Middle Jurassic, 200 to 162 million years ago.

“Jurassic sauropods are well represented in China, especially in Yunnan, Sichuan, Chongqing and Xinjiang, with only a few localities known in Gansu, Ningxia, Anhui, Tibet and Guizhou,” said lead author Dr. Jinyou Mo from the Natural History Museum of Guangxi and colleagues.

“In Guangxi, the Jurassic record of dinosaur fossils is poor, compared with the Cretaceous dinosaur fossil record.”

Two specimens of Huashanosaurus qini — including a partial skeleton — were collected at Huqiu Quarry of the Wangmen Formation near Dongshi village in Guangxi, southern China.

Some bony fish scales and teeth (possibly Lepidotes sp.), several incomplete plesiosaurian teeth, and several fragmentary dinosaur bones were found at the site.

“The geological age of the Wangmen Formation is under debate,” the paleontologists said.

“It was originally regarded as early Early Jurassic, but paleontological evidence was lacking.”

“Scientists regarded it as the Early to Middle Jurassic based on the discovery of charophytes from this formation.”

According to the team, Huashanosaurus qini is a basal member of the Eusauropoda, a derived group of sauropod dinosaurs.

“It is the second eusauropod from Guangxi,” the researchers said.

“The first described eusauropod, Jingia dongxingensis, was excavated from the Late Jurassic Dongxing Formation.”

The discovery of Huashanosaurus qini provides additional information about the evolutionary radiation of eusauropod dinosaurs.

“Huashanosaurus qini is later-diverging than the Early Jurassic Vulcanodon, Tazoudasaurus, and Gongxianosaurus, as well as the Early to early Middle Jurassic Barapasaurus,” the scientists said.

“Generally, it is recognized that the major radiation of eusauropods occurred during the end of the Early Jurassic and Middle Jurassic interval.”

“From this point of view, the discovery of the eusauropod Huashanosaurus qini provides additional evidence for an Early to Middle Jurassic age for the Wangmen Formation.”

The findings were published in the journal Acta Geologica Sinica.

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Jinyou Mo et al. 2025. A New Eusauropod Dinosaur from the Lower and Middle Jurassic Wangmen Formation of Ningming County, Guangxi, South China. Acta Geologica Sinica 99 (4): 909-924; doi: 10.1111/1755-6724.15331

A recently discovered asteroid roughly the size of a commercial jet will pass within 1 lunar distance of Earth on Sept. 3. Here’s how you can watch the flyby live online, courtesy of the Virtual Telescope Project.

The near-Earth asteroid designated 2025 QD8 is expected to pass roughly 135,465 miles (218,009 kilometers) from our planet — roughly 57% the Earth-moon distance — at 10:57 a.m. ET (1456 GMT) on Sept. 3.

Fossils usually leave us with bones turned to stone, the hard remains of creatures long gone.

But every so often, nature offers something far rarer — a glimpse of soft tissue that survived for millions of years.

Researchers examining a 520-million-year-old arthropod larva were stunned to find not just an outline of the creature, but an interior anatomy preserved with extraordinary clarity.

The specimen, they said, represents one of the most detailed looks at early animal life ever recorded.

“It’s always interesting to see what’s inside a sample using 3D imaging,” Katherine Dobson, a co-author of the study said in the press release. “But in this incredible tiny larva, natural fossilization has achieved almost perfect preservation.”

That preservation included a surprising wealth of features.

Using synchrotron X-ray tomography, the team identified a brain, “digestive glands, a primitive circulatory system and even traces of the nerves supplying the larva’s simple legs and eyes,” according to the research announcement.

Such fine-grained detail, they said, revealed that these early arthropods were far more complex than previously assumed.

Martin Smith, the study’s lead researcher, said the find matched his most ambitious hopes.

“When I used to daydream about the one fossil I’d most like to discover, I’d always be thinking of an arthropod larva, because developmental data are just so central to understanding their evolution,” Smith said in the press release.

“But larvae are so tiny and fragile, the chances of finding one fossilized are practically zero — or so I thought!” Smith said.

The preserved brain contained a structure known as the protocerebrum, which researchers traced forward through evolutionary history into the distinctive head formations that have helped arthropods flourish in nearly every environment on Earth.

Smith described his reaction upon realizing what the fossil contained.

“I already knew that this simple worm-like fossil was something special, but when I saw the amazing structures preserved under its skin, my jaw just dropped — how could these intricate features have avoided decay and still be here to see half a billion years later?”

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Blind dates are exciting because they hold the potential for surprises, especially when dealing with an interstellar date partner of unknown origin.

On October 3, 2025, the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS will pass within a distance of 29 million kilometers from Mars. At that time, the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will be able to image 3I/ATLAS with a resolution of 30 kilometers per pixel. The resulting closeup image might separate the contributions of the nucleus and surrounding dust cloud to the total luminosity of reflected sunlight stemming from 3I/ATLAS.

The Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance (MOID) of 3I/ATLAS from Mars, namely the closest distance that 3I/ATLAS gets to the complete path of Mars around the Sun, is merely 2.7 million kilometers. This by itself constitutes a remarkable fine-tuning of the path of 3I/ATLAS.

If 3I/ATLAS is a technological object, this short MOID makes it easy for a precursor mini-probe to reach Mars. In addition, an orbit correction by 10–15 kilometers per second during the month of September 2025, could shrink the closest approach distance of 3I/ATLAS from Mars to zero, as calculated in Figure 4 of my paper with Adam Hibberd and Adam Crowl (accessible here).

The ejection of icy fragments from the surface of a natural comet can only result in a velocity kick of order 0.4 kilometers per second based on the analysis of data from the Webb telescope (accessible here). This ejection speed is insufficient for these fragments to reach Mars. Moreover, the extent of the CO2 plume observed by SPHEREx around 3I/ATLAS (as reported here) is of order 350,000 kilometers, a distance beyond which the plume is expected to be confined by the ram-pressure from the solar wind. This distance is still shorter by a factor of a hundred from the value needed to reach Mars during the closest approach of 3I/ATLAS without a maneuver. Given all these considerations, the arrival of materials from 3I/ATLAS to Mars in October 2025 will be a potential signature of technology.

Gladly, the Labor Day holiday provided me with a relief from my routine administrative duties as director of Harvard’s Institute for Theory & Computation. In between interviews for television and podcasts, I calculated that if 3I/ATLAS has a precursor probe that was traveling ahead of it and sideways towards Mars by about 30 million kilometers, then this precursor probe would be able to intercept Mars on October 3, 2025 or during the week preceding it.

This provides a second motivation for using HiRISE within a month. In addition to imaging the nucleus and dust cloud of 3I/ATLAS, HiRISE could image Mars in search for any precursor objects that precede 3I/ATLAS and get closer to Mars than the main object. Near-Earth telescopes cannot detect the reflection of sunlight from precursor objects that are smaller than a hundred meters, the upper limit on the size of all space probes launched by humans so far.

Blind dates can be exciting if we observe the other side with curiosity and regard data collection as an opportunity to learn something new.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University’s — Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011–2020). He is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos”, both published in 2021. The paperback edition of his new book, titled “Interstellar”, was published in August 2024.

Blue-colored food may soon come without the usual side of petroleum and instead with a side of algae.

In a major food technology breakthrough published in Food Hydrocolloids, Cornell University researchers have developed a heat- and light-stable blue dye from phycocyanin, a naturally occurring protein in algae, which offers a cleaner, safer alternative to synthetic dyes like Blue 1 and Blue 2.

The breakthrough targets a decades-old problem. Blue is one of the rarest pigments in nature, and its scarcity has kept food manufacturers reliant on artificial versions linked to health concerns, including hyperactivity in children and possible toxicity.

These dyes also come from dirty energy like oil and gas, contributing to the pollution of our air and water.

Phycocyanin, the same pigment that gives blue spirulina its electric hue, has been approved as a food colorant in the U.S. and other countries, but its instability under heat and light has limited its use. The Cornell team solved this by using a gentle chemical process to break the protein into smaller, uniform particles, retaining its striking blue color while boosting its ability to act as an emulsifier, protecting nutrients in oils and enhancing food texture.

Using advanced imaging tools like small-angle X-ray scattering, the scientists confirmed the protein’s nanoscale transformation was both stable and functional.

“It’s like using a magnifying glass to understand protein behavior,” said Alireza Abbaspourrad, the Yongkeun Joh associate professor of food chemistry and ingredient technology at Cornell. “Our goal is for phycocyanin to replace multiple synthetic items, colorant, emulsifier, and antioxidant, all in one.”

This breakthrough could help the food industry cut down on petroleum-based additives like Red dye 3, reduce chemical pollution, and deliver cleaner labels to consumers, all while giving chefs and food makers a natural blue color to work with. The research also aligns with growing consumer demand for plant-based, minimally processed ingredients and a move away from petroleum-based, overprocessed ones, which contribute to harmful pollution and extreme weather.

The research team, supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is now working to scale up production with industry partners. If successful, this algae-powered pigment could hit grocery shelves within a few years, brightening foods and drinks while keeping harmful chemicals out of our bodies and the environment.

Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more and waste less, and don’t miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.

When plants face a drought, they stop growing. That part isn’t surprising – no water means no business as usual. But what happens when the rain finally returns? You might expect plants to bounce back and grow rapidly to make up for lost time. That’s not what actually happens.

Instead, new research shows plants go into defense mode. Their priority isn’t growing – it’s fighting off threats.

Plants hit pause to survive

A tiny plant known as Arabidopsis thaliana helped scientists understand this. Researchers have long experimented with this plant in labs because it is easy to cultivate and has a simple genetic makeup. It also shares many genes with common crops such as wheat, rice, and tomatoes.

When water is scarce, Arabidopsis closes its pores, slows down its activity, and conserves resources.

When water returns, those pores reopen, allowing the plant to rehydrate quickly. But this also welcomes disease-spreading bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Rather than going straight into growth, the plant prepares to protect itself..

Genes tracked cell by cell

Scientists at the Salk Institute used cutting-edge technology to monitor what happens inside the plant immediately after rehydration.

They focused on how gene activity varies from cell to cell, not just across the whole plant. This kind of research once required grinding up plant tissue and averaging the data, which concealed many details.

Using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, the team zoomed in on individual cells to see how they responded the moment water returned.

Plants activate hidden defenses

Just 15 minutes after watering the dried-out plants, something big happened. Genes across the leaves started turning on – thousands of them.

This sudden burst of gene activity wasn’t random. It formed a clear pattern of immune defense. The team calls this “Drought Recovery-Induced Immunity” (DRII).

This rapid and targeted immune response is triggered as soon as rehydration occurs, helping the plant fight off infections while it is still vulnerable.

“What’s really incredible here,” said Natanella Illouz-Eliaz, first author of the study, “is we would have entirely missed this discovery had we not decided to capture data at these early time points.”

Crops share drought defenses

After spotting DRII in Arabidopsis, the team checked if it happened in tomatoes too – both wild and farmed. It did. Both types activated the same kind of immune response after drought.

That means DRII probably isn’t just a lab-only thing. It could be common in many crops, especially ones closely related to tomatoes or Arabidopsis. And if that’s true, understanding how DRII works might help us grow tougher crops in the future.

“Drought poses a major challenge for plants, but what is less understood is how they recover once water returns,” said senior author Joseph Ecker. “We found that, rather than accelerating growth to compensate for lost time, Arabidopsis rapidly activates a coordinated immune response.”

Unanswered genetic puzzles

The speed of the immune response was striking. Within minutes of rehydration, leaves were already activating defense genes.

That raises some big questions for scientists. How does a signal from the roots reach the leaves so quickly? What is the signal?

Experts also want to figure out how DRII might be used in real-world farming. Can crops be bred or engineered to trigger this response more effectively? Could that protect yields during unpredictable weather?

“Our results reveal that drought recovery is not a passive process but a highly dynamic reprogramming of the plant’s immune system,” Ecker said.

“By defining the early genetic events that occur within minutes of rehydration, we can begin to uncover the molecular signals that coordinate stress recovery and explore how these mechanisms might be harnessed to improve crop resilience.”

Stronger plants for dry times

Droughts are becoming more frequent and more extreme in many parts of the world. Crops that can bounce back strong – and defend themselves when they do – could make a real difference in keeping food supplies steady.

This discovery shows that the moment after water returns may be just as important as the drought itself.

The research also demonstrates that plants don’t passively wait to grow again – they make a quick and strategic move to survive. And that’s something we are only beginning to understand.

The full study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

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Sauropod tooth wear reveals climate-driven diets and potential seasonal migration.

What did sauropods eat, and how far did they travel to meet their enormous food demands? An international team of researchers has reconstructed the feeding behavior of these long-necked dinosaurs by applying advanced dental wear analysis. Their study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, shows that microscopic wear patterns on tooth enamel can reveal unexpected details about migration, climate influences, and how different species shared ecological niches 150 million years ago.

Life during the Jurassic raises many questions: what did these giant herbivores consume, how did they coexist within the same environments, and did they perhaps move seasonally in search of food? These issues were examined by a team led by Dr. Daniela E. Winkler of Kiel University, Dr. Emanuel Tschopp of Freie Universität Berlin and the LIB, and André Saleiro of NOVA University Lisbon. Their approach relied on a novel source of evidence—microscopic traces on fossilized teeth that act as a record of feeding habits.

“I still find it fascinating that microscopic scratches on fossil teeth can tell us so much about diet and even behavior,” says Winkler, an expert in the applied methodology. The technique, known as Dental Microwear Texture Analysis (DMTA), was originally developed by a research group led by LIB scientist Professor Thomas Kaiser for studying mammals. The current study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, marks the first systematic application of the method to sauropods. The analyses were carried out in the laboratories of the LIB.

Tooth Enamel as an Environmental Archive

The researchers examined 322 high-resolution 3D scans of sauropod teeth from three well-known fossil sites: the Lourinhã Formation in Portugal, the Morrison Formation in the United States, and the Tendaguru Formation in Tanzania. In total, 39 individual dinosaurs were represented, with samples taken directly from original teeth or from detailed silicone molds.

“We’re talking about features on the micrometer scale,” Winkler explains. “These minuscule wear marks are created by contact between tooth and food, and they capture what the animal was eating in the last days or weeks of its life.”

Surprising Differences between Species and Regions

The statistical results revealed striking contrasts among sauropod groups and geographic regions. One notable case was the flagellicaudatans, the long-tailed sauropods that include Diplodocus. Their teeth displayed highly variable wear, suggesting a broad and flexible diet typical of generalist feeders.

In contrast, Camarasaurus specimens from both Portugal and the USA showed remarkably consistent wear patterns. This uniformity is unlikely to result solely from plant availability and instead suggests that these dinosaurs consistently sought out the same food sources year-round. “The climate in both Portugal and the USA was strongly seasonal, so some plants would not have been available at all times,” notes Tschopp. “The consistency in Camarasaurus tooth wear points to seasonal migration to secure the same resources.”

The titanosauriforms from Tanzania told a different story. Their teeth showed much heavier and more complex wear patterns. The researchers link this to the unique environmental setting of the Tendaguru Formation, which included tropical to semi-arid conditions and a nearby desert region. Winds likely carried quartz sand onto plants, meaning these sauropods regularly consumed vegetation coated with grit. This abrasive diet produced the distinctively worn teeth observed in the fossils.

Climate, Not Plant Variety, as the Key Factor

There were also clear differences between the regions themselves: teeth from Tanzania were consistently more heavily worn than those from Portugal or the USA. The crucial influencing factor? Climate.

“One of the most interesting aspects of this work is that we were able to relate differences in dental wear patterns to paleogeography and the habitat preferences of different sauropod faunas,” concludes André Saleiro. These findings also guide his future research: “The study showed me how to approach my ongoing work on niche partitioning in herbivorous dinosaurs – by focusing on specific paleo-environments to better understand the ecological relationships within species groups, and how these differences evolved across ecosystems.”

For Emanuel Tschopp, this is also one of the most exciting elements of the research: “With these microscopic traces, we can suddenly make behavioral statements about these enormous extinct animals. Migration, specialization, niche use – it all becomes tangible.” Another notable aspect: wear patterns differed depending on the area of the tooth – on the side (buccal) or on the chewing surface (occlusal). These differences were accounted for in the analysis to avoid distortion.

Relevance for Biodiversity Research

This study provides not only new insights into the lives of individual dinosaur species but also contributes to a broader understanding of palaeoecological relationships. Niche partitioning, climate-driven adaptations, and potential competition avoidance can thus be identified even in fossilized ecosystems.

“We demonstrate that ecological principles like niche formation and migration behavior were important not just today, but already 150 million years ago,” says Winkler. Tschopp adds: “The sauropods of the Morrison Formation show enormous species diversity – and that diversity was only possible because the species behaved differently and occupied different dietary niches.”

Looking Ahead: More Teeth, More Knowledge

The research is far from over. Future studies aim to explore whether juvenile and adult sauropods differed in their diets, or how dwarf species such as Europasaurus from Lower Saxony adapted to their specific island environment. Saleiro is already working on an expanded dataset for the Portuguese fauna, including other herbivorous dinosaurs.

“What excites me is that we can keep refining this method – and every new sample adds another piece to the puzzle,” says Winkler. “Our tools are getting better – and so is our understanding of what life back then was really like.” Tschopp agrees: “We’re still at the beginning with this method – but combining paleontology, modern technology and interdisciplinary collaboration opens up fascinating insights into ancient worlds.”

Reference: “Dental microwear texture analysis reveals behavioural, ecological and habitat signals in Late Jurassic sauropod dinosaur faunas” by Daniela E. Winkler, Emanuel Tschopp, André Saleiro, Ria Wiesinger and Thomas M. Kaiser, 18 July 2025, Nature Ecology & Evolution.
DOI: 10.1038/s41559-025-02794-5

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Using data collected by sensors on the U.S. Department of Defense Space Test Program Satellite 6 (STP-Sat6) in geostationary orbit, scientists have found that the number of electrical discharges on a spacecraft directly correlates to the number of electrons in the surrounding environment — information that could help them better understand how to protect equipment in space.

Spacecraft environment discharges (SEDs) are transient electrical breakdowns that can damage sensitive onboard electronics and communication systems.

Researchers have long known that SEDs exist, but they haven’t understood the relationship between the electrons in the space environment and SEDs.

“To do that, we needed two sensors on a single spacecraft: one that looked at the number and activity of electrons, and another that looked at the radio frequency signal,” said Dr. Amitabh Nag, a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

These SEDs are typically the result of a difference in surface charging caused by electrons accumulating on spacecraft surfaces in orbit.

Not unlike static electricity on Earth — when energy builds up as a person walks across a carpet, for example, and causes a spark when a finger touches a door handle — electrical discharges in the space environment occur when a buildup of energy on the spacecraft eventually reaches a large enough voltage that the energy is released.

STP-Sat6 has both of those sensors on board, giving the researchers a unique opportunity to simultaneously look at both radio frequency and electron activity data.

“We were able to see the rate of SEDs reported by the radio frequency sensor and compare it to the activity of electron particles within a certain voltage range,” Dr. Nag said.

“What we learned was that the peaks in SEDs correlated to peaks in electron activity.”

The authors looked at more than a year’s worth of data from the two sensors, identifying more than 270 high-rate SED periods and several hundred episodes of high electron activity.

In about three-fourths of the cases, peaks in electron activity preceded the SED events by 24 to 45 minutes.

This delay suggests that the buildup of charge from low-energy electrons plays a key role in priming the spacecraft for electrostatic discharges.

“We observed that as electron activity increases, especially in that 7.9 to 12.2 keV range, the spacecraft starts to accumulate charge,” Dr. Nag said.

“This continues until a tipping point is reached and SEDs occur.”

“That lead time opens the door for potential forecasting tools to mitigate risks.”

“Future missions could integrate real-time monitoring of low-energy electrons to predict and respond to charging events before they impact operations.”

The results appear in the journal Advances in Space Research.

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Amitabh Nag et al. 2025. Radio frequency transients correlated with electron flux measured on-board the STP-Sat6. Advances in Space Research 76 (6): 3692-3699; doi: 10.1016/j.asr.2025.07.026

Salt giants and other striking formations in the Dead Sea reveal how evaporation and fluid dynamics shape Earth’s geological past and present.

The Dead Sea represents a unique convergence of conditions: it lies at the lowest point on Earth’s surface and contains one of the planet’s highest salt concentrations. This extreme salinity makes the water unusually dense, and its distinction as the deepest hypersaline lake produces remarkable, often temperature-driven processes beneath the surface that scientists are still working to understand.

Among the most intriguing features are the so-called salt giants — vast accumulations of salt within the Earth’s crust.

“These large deposits in the earth’s crust can be many, many kilometers horizontally, and they can be more than a kilometer thick in the vertical direction,” said UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineering professor Eckart Meiburg, lead author of a paper published in the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics. “How were they generated? The Dead Sea is really the only place in the world where we can study the mechanism of these things today.”

Although massive salt deposits are also present in places such as the Mediterranean and Red seas, the Dead Sea is the only location where they are actively forming. This makes it an unparalleled site for investigating the physical processes that govern their development, including how their thickness varies across space and time.

Evaporation, precipitation, saturation

In their study, Meiburg and co-author Nadav Lensky of the Geological Survey of Israel describe the fluid dynamics and sediment transport processes currently shaping the Dead Sea. These processes are controlled by several factors, most notably the Dead Sea’s classification as a terminal salt lake — a body of water with no natural outflow. Evaporation is therefore the only means of water loss, a process that has been shrinking the lake for thousands of years while leaving behind extensive salt deposits. In recent decades, the damming of the Jordan River, its primary inflow, has intensified this decline, with the water level now dropping at an estimated rate of about 1 meter (3 feet) per year.

Temperature differences within the water column also play a key role in the formation of salt giants and related features such as salt domes and chimneys. For much of its history, the Dead Sea was “meromictic” (stably stratified), with a warmer, less dense surface layer resting above a cooler, saltier, denser layer at depth.

From meromictic to holomictic conditions

“It used to be such that even in the winter when things cooled off, the top layer was still less dense than the bottom layer,” Meiburg explained. “And so as a result, there was a stratification in the salt.”

This balance shifted in the early 1980s when partial diversion of the Jordan River reduced freshwater inflow, allowing evaporation to dominate. At that point, surface salinity reached levels comparable to the deep waters, enabling the two layers to mix. This change transformed the lake from meromictic to holomictic (a lake in which the water column overturns annually). Today, stratification still occurs, but it persists only for roughly eight months during the warmer part of the year.

In 2019, Meiburg and colleagues observed an unusual process in summer: the precipitation of halite crystals, or “salt snow,” typically associated with colder months. Halite (commonly known as rock salt) forms when salinity exceeds the amount water can dissolve, making the deeper, colder, denser layers the usual site of precipitation in winter. However, during summer, the researchers found that while evaporation raised the salinity of the upper layer, the warmth of the water allowed salts to keep dissolving there. This produced a condition called “double diffusion,” where patches of the warmer, saltier water near the surface cooled and sank, while portions of the deeper, cooler water warmed and rose. As the denser upper layer cooled further, salt began to precipitate, creating the unexpected “salt snow” phenomenon.

Salt snow and giant formations

The combination of evaporation, temperature fluctuations and density changes throughout the water column, in addition to other factors including internal currents and surface waves, conspire to create salt deposits of various shapes and sizes, assert the authors. In contrast to shallower hypersaline bodies in which precipitation and deposition occur during the dry season, in the Dead Sea, these processes were found to be most intense during the winter months. This year-round “snow” season at depth explains the emergence of the salt giants, found in other saline bodies such as the Mediterranean Sea, which once dried up during the Messinian Salinity Crisis, about 5.96 to 5.33 million years ago.

“There was always some inflow from the North Atlantic into the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar,” Meiburg said. “But when tectonic motion closed off the Strait of Gibraltar, there couldn’t be any water inflow from the North Atlantic.” The sea level dropped 3-5 km (2-3 miles) due to evaporation, creating the same conditions currently found in the Dead Sea and leaving behind the thickest of this salt crust that can still be found buried below the deep sections of the Mediterranean, he explained. “But then a few million years later the Strait of Gibraltar opened up again, and so you had inflow coming in from the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean filled up again.”

Meanwhile, salinity fluxes and the presence of springs on the sea floor contribute to the formation of other interesting salt structures, such as salt domes and salt chimneys, according to the researchers.

In addition to gaining a fundamental understanding of some of the idiosyncratic processes that can occur in evaporating, hypersaline lakes, research into the associated sediment transport processes occurring on the emerging beaches may also yield insight on the stability and erosion of arid coastlines under sea level change, as well as the potential for resource extraction, the authors state.

Reference: “Fluid Mechanics of the Dead Sea” by Eckart Meiburg and Nadav G. Lensky, 11 September 2024, Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics.
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-fluid-031424-101119

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