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Hydrological Processes on the Karak Plateau
 The Karak Plateau is located along the western border of Central Jordan
adjacent to the Dead Sea. The plateau is a classic upland landform, dissected by
the large canyons. Images from space vividly illustrate why this region is
called a plateau, even by those unfamiliar with geomorphological terminology.
Of the many geomorphological “topics” that could be explored on the Plateau, the
focus of this study is the hydrological processes at work on the plateau. A
first glance at the plateau raises the initial question of how to account for
such enormous channels (i.e., canyons) in an environment that for at least the
past 4,000 years has received no more than 340 mm of annual precipitation1.
However, a closer look at the topography of the plateau reveals yet another
characteristic that must be incorporated into any discussion of the plateau.
When we look at the modern gradient of the plateau surface, we discover that the
overall slope of the Plateau surface is opposite of the canyons that carry
runoff into the Dead Sea.
 The result is that we have a plateau,
with annual precipitation of around 300mm, being drained by huge canyons (nearly
¾ mile deep and over a mile wide) that drain the opposite direction of the
surface gradient of the plateau.
In order to understand the landform we see today, we must go back a few years,
as it turns out, around 130 million years. The present appearance of the Karak
Plateau, like many landforms across the earth, owes much to morphologies that
are inherited. 2
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