Which river flows south into the dead sea?

Question

Which river along the Eastern Mediterranean coast has no outlet on the sea but flows south into the Dead Sea?

Answer 1

the River Jordan

http://i-cias.com/e.o/jordan_r.htm

http://encarta.msn.com/map_701513526/jor...

Answer 2

The Jordan river flows south into the Dead Sea

Answer 3

B.1 Jordan

For this overview of the physical geography of Jordan, including its geology and hydrogeology, Bender (1975) is used as the core reference.

B. 1.1 Topography

In contrast to the more uniform and monotonous morphology of most of the Arabian peninsula, the territory of Jordan is morphologically distinctive and may be divided into seven "physiographic provinces," which coincide with the geological provinces shown in fig. B.1 (RJGC

1986):

southern mountain desert,

mountain range and northern highlands east of the Rift,

central plateau, including the Al-Jafr and Al-Azraq-Wadi as-Sirhan basin,

northern plateau basalt,

north-eastern plateau,

Wadi al-Arabah-Jordan Rift,

highlands west of the Rift.

The most remarkable physical feature of the country is the Jordan Rift valley, which is a narrow depression extending from the Gulf of Aqaba for approximately 360 km north to the upper Jordan River. Much of the land in this graben, as it is called, is below sea level, with the lowest levels in the Dead Sea at-794 m. The Jordan River flows into the Dead Sea, which has no outlet. The Rift valley, however, continues to the Gulf of Aqaba, where Jordan has 20 km of coastline. To the east of the Rift valley, the land rises steeply to a plateau with an average altitude of about 800 m above mean sea level and with peaks rising to over 1,500 m in the south. Ninety per cent or more of the surface water resources, which include two-third of the country's total potential water resources, are drained into the Dead Sea.

Fig. B.1 Physiographic-geolo~cal provinces of Jordan (Source: Bender 1975)

B.1.2 Hydrology

Jordan lies in a transitional zone between the Mediterranean climate in the west and the arid climate to the east and south. The synoptic climatic zone of Jordan is part of the Mediterranean big-climatic region, an essential feature of which is the concentration of rainfall during the cool winter season and a very marked summer drought. This relatively simple climatic regime is due to the interaction of two major atmospheric circulation patterns. During the winter months Jordan is within the sphere of influence of the temperate-latitudes climatic belt, and moist, cool air moves eastward from the Mediterranean over the area. In the summer months the area lies within the subtropical highpressure belt of dry air; temperatures are relatively high and no rainfall occurs. Regional distribution of rainfall within the area is related to the orographic effect of the western highlands, which are oriented normal to the direction of movement of moist air during the winter months. This produces high rainfall zones coincident with the higher mountain ranges and a marked rain shadow in the lee of the hills. Altitude has also a strong effect on temperature. Frost is common during the winter months, and snowfalls occur in most years in the western highlands from December to March.

The highest rainfall zones correspond to the major mountain blocks of the western highlands, including the highest mean annual rainfall of 664 mm at Ajlun station in the northern part of the western highlands. The mean annual rainfall is relatively abundant, in the range between 200 and 600 mm in the western highlands, but it decreases rapidly from the western highlands into the Jordan valley, Dead Sea, and Wadi Araba. From the northern end of the Dead Sea southwards and from Wadi Araba to Aqaba, the mean annual rainfall decreases to less than 100 mm and 50 mm respectively. North from the Dead Sea to Lake Tiberias rainfall increases to up to 400 mm per year. In most of the central plateau and in the eastern desert the mean annual rainfall decreases to less than 50-100 mm where the land slopes gently to the Arabian desert. Rainfall occurs between October and May and is at its highest between December and March, when more than 80% of the annual rainfall occurs. The annual rainfall varies from year to year; the range is most marked in the central plateau and in the southern part of the westem highlands, where there have been extreme records of only 2 mm per year and a maximum of 233 mm per year. The distribution of annual rainfall is shown in fig. B.2.

Owing to the hyper-arid climate with a substantial deficit in soil moisture, actual evaporation from the desert land is estimated to be very small and is less than the amount of annual rainfall plus residual soil moisture, while the potential evaporation, which as measured by class A-pan, is as high as 2,4007,400 mm per year. The highest rate of 7,400 mm per year occurs in the eastern and southern Bayir, while it is less than 3,000 mm per year in the northern and central mountain ranges and less than 2,800 mm in the mountains of Shoubak and Tafila (RJGC 1986). The highest potential evaporation occurs during the hottest months of the year, from June to August; the months with lowest evaporation are December to February.

The average annual volume of rainfall within Jordan is estimated to be 8,500 million m³. With high evaporation losses, however, the average net annual run-off is only about 1,120 million m³, including 242 million m³ in the form of groundwater and 878 million m³ in surface flow.

The eastern Jordan valley basin, which includes the Syrian share of the Yarmouk River basin-including the Yarmouk River, Wadi Arab, Wadi Ziqlab, Wadi Jurum, Wadi Yabis, Wadi Kufrinja, Wadi Rajib, Wadi Zarqa, Wadi Shueib, and Wadi Kafrein-has an annual average run-off estimated to be 607 million m³ in total, which includes 357 million m³ of base flow.

The Dead Sea basin, which includes Wadi Zerqa Ma'an, Wadi Wala, Wadi Mujib, Wadi al-Karak, and Wadi Hasa, has an annual average run-off estimated to be 191 million m³ in total, including 141 million m³ of base flow.

A small amount of surface flow occurs in the Wadi Araba basin south of the Dead Sea. The Wadi Araba basin includes Wadi Feifa, Wadi Khuneizir, Wadi Fidan, Wadi el-Buweirida, and Wadi Musa. The annual average run-off is estimated to be 31 million m³ in total, including 21.6 million m³ of base flow.

Other desert basins are mostly located in the eastern and southem part of Jordan, of which the wadi systems are not clearly defined.

The Yarmouk River, which runs along the northern border of Jordan with Syria, provides almost half (400 million m³ per year at Adasiya) of Jordan's surface water resources. The total stream-flows of Jordan are estimated to be about 878 million m³ per year, including 540 million m³ of base flow.

Fig. B.2 Mean annual rainfall map of Israel and the Jordan Rift valley

B.1.3 Geology

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is situated in the north-westem corner of the Arabian peninsula. Part of the Nubo-Arabian shield is exposed in southwestern Jordan. It is characterized by platonic and metamorphic rocks, and by some minor occurrences of Upper Proterozoic sedimentary rocks. Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian sandstone and shale of continental and marine origin have a maximum thickness of 1,800 m and unconformably overlie the rocks of the Precambrian basement complex.

A belt of sedimentary rocks deposited chiefly on the stable shelf area of the Tethys Sea borders the northern fringe of the shield. Most of south-eastern and central Jordan is within this belt. It is a zone of inter-fingering sedimentary rocks of continental, littoral, and neritic origin, rapid lateral facies changes, and many stratigraphic unconformities caused by pulsation and, at certain periods, transgression and regression of the Tethys Sea. Regionally, the marine influence on the deposition increases toward the north and west. The total thickness of all post-Proterozoic sedimentary rocks is 2,000-3,000 m; it exceeds 4,000 m in the baylike sedimentary basin of Al-Jafr in south-central Jordan and 5,000 m in the Al-Azraq-Wadi al-Sirhan basin in north central Jordan. These sedimentary basins strike north-west and thus seem to merge with the unstable shelf area of the Tethys Sea in the north-west.

In the transition zone to and in the area of the unstable shelf in northwestern, northern, and probably north-eastern Jordan, neritic and bathyal sedimentary rocks form the greater part of the post Palaeozoic rocks. There, the stratigraphic sequence is more complete, with fewer unconformities, and lateral facies changes are less pronounced than in the stable shelf area to the south and south-east. In north-western Jordan, west of the Jordan River, the total thickness of sedimentary rocks above the Precambrian basement may be as much as 7,000 m; in the Dead Sea area of Wadi al-Araba-Jordan Rift province, repeated structural subsidence resulted in the accumulation of sedimentary rocks as much as 10,000 m thick.

No evidence is known of post-Proterozoic structural movements characteristic of alpine orogenesis. The crustal movements affecting the country since the Cambrian were gentle regional fillings (epeirogenic movements) and a combination of faulting, block folding, and taphrogenic movements. The majority of structural features were caused by tensional forces. Evidence of compression is rare and chiefly restricted to west Jordan and to north Jordan east of the Rift.

Major volcanic activity occurred during (1) the Late Proterozoic and Early Cambrian (quartz porphyries; Wadi al-Araba), (2) the Late Jurassic (?) and Neocomian (mafic and intermediate eruptive rocks; Wadi al-Araba and west of the Jordan River), and (3) the Neogene Tertiary (includes Miocene and Pliocene) and Pleistocene (extensive basalt volcanism) (Bender 1975).

Fig. B.3 General bydrogeological section of Jordan (Source: Harshbarger 1966)

B.1.4 Hydrogeology

The main aquifers have been recognized in the pervious sequences in the formation of (1) the basalt system, (2) Rijam (B4) system, (3) Amman-Wadi Sir (B2/A7) system, (4) Lower Ajlun (A1-6) system, (5) Kurnub system, and (6) Disi system (see fig. B.3).

BASALT SY