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Climate Influences
Beginning late in the Cretaceous period and continuing throughout much of the
Pleistocene, climate worked with the geology and tectonics by providing "both
the energy and material that the fluvial systems needed to do their
work." (Salameh, 1997; cf. also Ward, 1995; Strahler and Strahler, 1994; and
Leuven, 1982). As variations in climate triggered changes in pluvial activity,
the level of the Dead Sea and it predecessors (Lake Samra – fresh water, in the
Lower Pleistocene; and Lake Lisan – 50-12,000 BD) changed many times. During
these periods of base-level adjustment, the highly susceptible plateau limestone
and underlying sandstone experienced significant erosion along channel walls and
mouths. Today, we see the remains of these climatic oscillations in the more
than 30 shore terraces that have been preserved and identified along the Dead
Sea escarpment.
 Associated with some of the climatic oscillations was a significant increase in
the intensity and frequency of storm events. All along the eastern shoreline of
the Dead Sea numerous remnants of these storm episodes can be seen in the relic
deltas that are now exposed at the mouths of many wadis. Salameh
(1997) argues that these were originally subaqueous deltas, deposited when Lake
Lisan (fueled by Pleistocene storm events) was receiving huge accumulations of
sediment coming from the erosion of channel walls and valleys (Odeh and Salameh,
1988). As the climate became more arid and the base-level of the lake lowered,
the deltas and canyons we see today became fully exposed (approximately
18-23,000 BP).3
 As erosion and weathering (both mechanical and fluvial) was widening and
deepening the stream channels, compression along the boundary between the
adjoining plates was displacing and lifting (between 1,500 and 2,000 meters) the
plateau block (Salameh, 1997). The net result was the uplifted and dissected
plateau we see today.4
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