
Transport of halite grains from the southern basin of the Dead Sea to the northern basin – a fluvial conveyer and coastal transport
Lensky NG (1,2), Sirota I (1), Solodoch A (2), E Warszwar (1,2), L Ben Moshe (1), R Bodzin (1), G Katz (1,2), H Eyal (3), Meiburg E (3), B Vowinckel (4), J Aberle (5)
(1) Geological Survey of Israel, 32 Yesha'ayahu Leibowitz, Jerusalem 9692100, Israel
(2) The Fredy and Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
(3) Department of Earth Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
(4) Other Institute (insert manually)
(5) Other Institute (insert manually)
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara
The Salt Harvest Project aims to deliver a huge amount of salt grains (~16*10^6*m^3/year) from the southern basin of the Dead Sea to the northern basin, in order to keep the level of the evaporation ponds fixed. The original plan was to build a conveyer from the ponds to the coast of the northern basin, and then a marine transport line via barges or pipes to the dumping site in the deep part of the lake. However, the Dead Sea poses serious challenges in the transition from the land conveyer to the marine transportation line. We suggest and explore two simpler and more feasible alternatives: (i) Transport of salt grains via Nahal Ha’Arava, a perennial river that delivers the end-brines from the evaporation ponds back to the Dead Sea. Since the stream is incising due to the lake level decline, the addition of salt can cease the incision. (ii) The main portion of halite will be delivered northward via the conveyer and then will be transported to the lake from the shore to the offshore by bulldozers or other engineering means to form a delta-like salt pile. The stability of the artificial delta is the subject of our study; specifically, we explore waves that transport halite grains, currents that form along shore conveyer, internal waves that move particles from their rest. We quantify the knowledge gaps via the multidisciplinary research of: (a) direct observations of the stream and coastal environments including the atmospheric boundary layer, waves, currents and internal waves, thermohaline stratification and saturation of halite, (b) large scale field experiments with addition of salt to the stream and to the coastal environment, (c) numerical simulations of the multiphase flow along the stream and in the lake, and (d) laboratory experiments.



