Occasional Whiteness of the Dead Sea

Abstract

ON the morning of August 25, 1943, it was observed that the whole Dead Sea, which at this season is always perfectly clear, had become milky white. The same observation was made on the same morning at the northern and southern ends, which are seventy kilometres apart, and it was further ascertained that during that night the whole Dead Sea had turned white. During winter storms a seam of some 100 metres occurs frequently along the shores, turbid and yellowish, but it was never observed that the whole Dead Sea surface had turned white. The turbidity gradually disappeared and in December 1943 the water became almost clear again.