No abstract

Hypersaline lakes and seas were common in the past, precipitating thick evaporitic salt deposits. The only modern analogue for the paleolimnology of deep salt‐saturated aquatic environments exists in the Dead Sea. In this study, we present new insights from the Dead Sea on the role of seasonal thermohaline stratification and water balance on the seasonal and depth variations of the degree of saturation of halite (salt) and the rate of halite growth along the water column. We developed methodologies to accurately determine the empirical degree of halite saturation of the lake based on high accuracy densitometry, and to quantify halite growth rate along the water column. During summer, the epilimnion is undersaturated and halite is dissolved, whereas during winter the entire water column is supersaturated and crystallizes halite. This result is not trivial because the variations in the water balance suggest the opposite; summer is associated with higher loss of water by evaporation from the lake compared to the winter. Hence, the thermal effect overcomes the hydrological balance effect and thus governs the seasonal saturation cycle. The hypolimnion is supersaturated with respect to halite and crystallizes throughout the year, with higher super saturation and higher crystallization rates during winter. During summer, simultaneous opposing environments coexist—an undersaturated epilimnion that dissolves halite and a supersaturated hypolimnion that crystallizes halite, which results in focusing of halite deposits in the deep hypolimnetic parts of the evaporitic basins and thinning the shallow epilimnetic deposits.

The development of giant salt basins and eventual cessation of rapid salt deposition is founded on a delicate balance of salinity and heat fluxes within the water body governed by tectonic, climatic and eustatic change. The onset of salt deposition in such basins is widely accepted to be initiated by basin restriction. However, the processes that lead to the termination of salt deposition are comparatively unclear. Here we use an array of 2D and 3D seismic surveys to reveal that the truncation surface at the top of a thick salt sequence in the Eastern Mediterranean is far more extensive than previously thought. We show that uplift of the salt driven by deformation and thermal dissolution initiated the demise of the 'salt giant', even prior to the final dilution and emplacement of brackish Lago Mare and fluvial deposits. Progressive uplift of the salt through the thermocline and into the under-saturated epilimnion led to dissolution. We argue that dissolved salt was recycled and re-precipitation from the hypolimnion in the deepest sections of the basin contemporaneous with dissolution of halite from the shallower epilimnion. These findings explain how rapid basinwide salt deposition was brought to an end in the Eastern Mediterranean and present a novel process for sculpting the final architecture of a 'salt giant'.