Divers Find Weird Salt 'Chimneys' at the Bottom Of Dead Sea — And They Revealed What It Can Do

All phenomena, mysterious or known, occurring on the Earth’s surface are fundamentally a chain of reactions. By the same token, scientists have discovered strange chimneys spewing clouds of shimmering fluid on the bottom of the Dead Sea, which is 10 times saltier than the ocean. These chimneys, referred to as white smokers, appear as submarine pillars as tall as 23 feet and stretch onto a width of 10 feet in diameter, as per observations made in a research published in the journal Science of The Total Environment in December 2024. 

Christian Siebert, lead author of the study and a hydroecologist at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Germany, and his team of divers explored the bottom of the Dead Sea in a bid to investigate the shrinking water reserves in the region. Eventually, they came across the sunken city of pearly-white pillars, mostly between 3 to 7 feet in height from the lake floor, discharging smokey substance which was found to be a saline fluid. 

He told Live Science, “So far they are unique and never observed worldwide before.” The study explained the shimmering liquid gushing out of the chimneys was actually groundwater from the surrounding aquifers that had seeped into the thick layers of salt-rich rocks at the bottom. The flow of fresh groundwater via the salty passage allows some of the salt to dissolve in it resulting in a concentrated brine, however, less dense than the Dead Sea water. 

The difference in the densities causes the brine from the underneath to “jet” out of the floor and rise into the salty lake. "It looks like smoke, but it's a saline fluid," Siebert clarified. The dissolved salt in the brine further crystallizes out of it as the lake water and the saline fluid from the rocks mix, causing slender columns of salt. The study revealed that the chimneys can grow by several inches a day and are potentially tied to a life-threatening situation that scientists have been trying to solve for years. 

Sinkholes are a common occurrence around the Dead Sea region. The disintegration of the salt-rich rocks that make up the lake floor gives way to vast underground cavities overtime. As all the rocks underneath perish, the thin superficial layer above crumbles into the cavity leaving a gaping sinkhole. Scientists now explain that these white smokers can be used a forecasting tool for the sinkholes and identify the potentially risky areas susceptible to collapse. 

"To date, no one can predict where the next sinkholes will occur. This makes the white smokers an outstanding forecasting tool for locating areas that are at risk of collapse in the near future,” Siebert said in a statement to EurekaAlert. He suggest that this novel method could be “highly efficient” in identifying the regions at risk and prevent possible lifeloss or infrastructural damage.

The Dead Sea, landlocked between Jordan, Israel, and the West Bank, has been facing several challenges for the past 50 years due to local drought and evaporation. The neighbouring countries are now struggling to utilize groundwater resources as the water table in the region shrinks, the U.S. Geological Survey stated. This will cause the water in the Dead Sea to get saltier as the lake consumes up the fresh water reserves nearby.