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Radium in the Dead Sea: A possible tracer for the duration of meromixis 1
Author(s) -
Stiller M.,
Chung Y. C.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
limnology and oceanography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 197
eISSN - 1939-5590
pISSN - 0024-3590
DOI - 10.4319/lo.1984.29.3.0574
Subject(s) - radium , dead sea , geology , anoxic waters , black sea , tracer , inflow , oceanography , environmental science , hydrology (agriculture) , chemistry , radiochemistry , geotechnical engineering , physics , nuclear physics
Three profiles of 226 Ra in the meromictic Dead Sea measured during 1963–1978 indicate that the radium activities in the upper water mass were higher than in the lower water mass. All three profiles indicate a similar radium inventory. The Jordan inflow is not the primary source of radium to the Dead Sea. Mineral springs and submerged seepages are probably more important contributors. The age of the meromictic structure is estimated by a model which requires that the radium inventory of the lake be at a steady state, that sometime in the past the radium profile of the lake had been uniform (when either the lake was monomictic or an overturn had ended an earlier meromictic phase) and that the contemporaneous profiles of radium have been built up by inflows of radium solely into the upper water mass, while the monimolimnion is relict, isolated, and loses radium only by radioactive decay. Supporting evidence is presented suggesting that the above conditions may be fulfilled. Thus, it is possible to estimate that the Dead Sea was meromictic for about 300 years before the turnover in 1979. From tentative balances of the Dead Sea dissolved salts it is shown that a previous overturn might have occurred at a lower lake level than in 1979.