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ABSTRACT The role of freshwater inputs and salinity gradients in hypersaline basins is crucial for understanding the formation of evaporitic sequences. However, this role remains poorly understood, as it involves complex processes such as mixing across density gradients, plume dynamics and air–water interactions. This study addresses this gap by investigating how a diluted buoyant plume, formed by freshwater inflows, affects spatial halite accumulation in the Dead Sea, a modern analogue for ancient evaporitic environments. In situ measurements of halite accumulation rates were conducted along transects extending from nearshore freshwater inflows (discharging ~70 × 10⁶m³year⁻¹), through the diluted plume, and into regions beyond the dilution effect. These measurements were complemented by analyses of spatiotemporal limnological conditions (salinity, temperature, turbidity and halite saturation), which are influenced by wind‐wave action. The diluted plume exhibits a distinct salinity structure, with full dilution at the freshwater spring discharge and exponential decay in both horizontal and vertical directions: horizontally, it decays over ~500 m, with surface dilution extending ~2 km offshore, and vertically it decays over ~0.06 m, creating a thin, highly diluted upper layer of about 1 m thick. Consequently, halite accumulation rates increase along the transect from the freshwater inflows towards deeper areas as the dilution effect diminishes. This process is controlled by (i) the transport of supersaturated brine and halite crystals from the non‐diluted environment under the diluted plume and (ii) direct precipitation of halite when the diluted plume undergoes mechanical mixing. Persistent undersaturation in the upper diluted plume layer prevents halite precipitation and, when combined with the declining lake level, leads to the dissolution of previously deposited halite layers in deeper areas. The absence of halite near the freshwater inflow and the thickening of halite towards the depocenter are observed in early Holocene Dead Sea basin halite sequences and other global halite records. 

The environmental setting of the Dead Sea combines several aspects whose interplay creates flow phenomena and transport processes that cannot be observed anywhere else on Earth. As a terminal lake with a rapidly declining surface level, the Dead Sea has a salinity that is close to saturation, so that the buoyancy-driven flows common in lakes are coupled to precipitation and dissolution, and large amounts of salt are being deposited year-round. The Dead Sea is the only hypersaline lake deep enough to form a thermohaline stratification during the summer, which gives rise to descending supersaturated dissolved-salt fingers that precipitate halite particles. In contrast, during the winter the entire supersaturated, well-mixed water column produces halite. The rapid lake level decline ofO(1 m/year) exposes vast areas of newly formed beach every year, which exhibit deep incisions from streams. Taken together, these phenomena provide insight into the enigmatic salt giants observed in the Earth's geological record and offer lessons regarding the stability, erosion, and protection of arid coastlines under sea level change. 

Halite deposits have long been utilized for interrogating past climate conditions. Microthermometry on halite fluid inclusions has been used to determine ancient water temperatures. One notable obstacle in performing microthermometric measurements, however, is the lack of a vapor bubble in the single-phase liquid inclusions at room temperature. (Pseudo-) isochoric cooling of the inclusions to high negative pressures, far below the homogenization temperature, has commonly been needed to provoke spontaneous vapor bubble nucleation in the liquid. High internal tensile stress in soft host minerals like halite, however, may induce plastic deformation of the inclusion walls, resulting in a wide scatter of measured homogenization temperatures. Nucleation-assisted (NA) microthermometry, in contrast, employs single ultra-short laser pulses provided by a femtosecond laser to stimulate vapor bubble nucleation in metastable liquid inclusions slightly below the expected homogenization temperature. This technique allows for repeated vapor bubble nucleation in selected fluid inclusions without affecting the volumetric properties of the inclusions, and yields highly precise and accurate homogenization temperatures. In this study, we apply, for the first time, NA microthermometry to fluid inclusions in halite and we evaluatethe precision and accuracy of this thermometer utilizing (i) synthetic halite crystals precipitated under controlled laboratory conditions, (ii) modern natural halite that precipitated in the 1980s in the Dead Sea, and (iii) Late Pleistocene halite samples from a sediment core from Death Valley, CA. Our results demonstrate an unprecedented accuracy and precision of the method that provides a new opportunity to reconstruct reliable quantitative temperature records from evaporite archives. 

Water availability in the Levant is predicted to decline due to global warming in the upcoming decades and is expected to substantially impact the region. Determining the long-term natural rainfall variability in this region is essential for understanding the regional hydroclimatic response to external climate forcings and for contex- tualizing future hydroclimate changes. The Dead Sea (DS), located in the southern Levant, is a closed-basin lake whose size varies as a function of water availability. Reconstructing DS lake-level variations through time provides a quantitative measure of the natural hydroclimate variability and can inform on the local hydroclimate response to changes in global climate. Here, we constructed an updated lake-level history of the Holocene DS by: 1) studying lake high-stands derived from a series of new cores collected in the DS southern basin, 2) re-dating of the two major Holocene high-stand exposures, and 3) compiling all previously published ages of Holocene DS lake-level markers (n = 296 radiocarbon ages). The results show that the early (10–6.1 kyr cal BP) and late Holocene (3.6–0 kyr cal BP) in the DS were predominantly wet albeit punctuated by dry intervals, whereas the middle Holocene (6.1–3.6 kyr cal BP) was most likely relatively dry. This pattern of two Holocene humid in- tervals is also evident in distillation records derived from Levant speleothem caves (which represent the inte- grated magnitude of rainout from the vapor source to the caves), indicating that rainfall intensity and total water availability were correlated throughout the Holocene. These two humid intervals occurred during high and low summer insolation conditions, suggesting that they were modulated by different climatic mechanisms. The predicted future drying in the Levant is of similar magnitude to the natural hydroclimate variability and thus, it is crucial to assess whether the anthropogenic drying is in- or out-of phase with the natural climate variability. 

Abstract We employ direct numerical simulations in order to analyze the role of double‐diffusive salt fingering in halite precipitation from hypersaline lakes. Guided by field observations from the Dead Sea, which represents the only modern deep stratified lake that precipitates halite under hydrological crisis, we consider a saturated layer of warm, salty brine (epilimnion) overlying a layer of colder, less salty brine (hypolimnion) that is also saturated. The double‐diffusive instability originating in the metalimnion gives rise to an asymmetrical pattern of less salty ascending fingers, accompanied by descending salt fingers that lose heat as they propagate through the metalimnion. The net result is a strong, downward salinity flux that leads to the undersaturation of the epilimnion, while the hypolimnion becomes oversaturated and precipitates halite. These interfacial processes within deep, hypersaline water columns in warm and dry regions suggest a potential route toward the formation of thick halite layers found in the geological record.