The Dead Sea, which isn’t actually a sea at all, is an important body of water in the Middle East.

It borders Israel, Jordan, and the West Bank, with people in all three regions using it for various things.

The water levels in the Dead Sea have been dropping over the past several years due to drought, water use, and other factors.

So, divers have been in the water performing research to learn more about the impact of the dropping water levels and other information.

While diving, they saw something that looked out of the ordinary.

They witnessed a chimney-like structure coming up from the lake floor.

Upon closer inspection, they found that the structure was solid, and almost looked like a white shimmering smoke coming from the ground.

They appeared similar to black smokers, which are found in the ocean, but they were white.

A group of researchers consisting of mineralogists, geochemists, hydrologists, remote sensing experts, isotope chemists, microbiologists, geologists, and others came together to investigate the unusual structures.

Their findings were published in Science of the Total Environment.

In the findings, they report that these plumes are forming due to highly saline groundwater that is jetting into the Dead Sea.

This salty water comes from groundwater aquifers that have penetrated into saline lake sediments.

The salty sediments enter the water, which then travels up into the springs that feed the Dead Sea.

As it comes into the Dead Sea as brine, the salts and other minerals quickly dissolve.

From there, they spontaneously crystallize and form into these structures.

The structures seem to grow several centimeters per day while active.

They found many of them at about 1-2 meters (3.3-6.5 feet) high, and the largest ones being 2-3 meters (6.5-9.8 feet) tall.

While these beautiful structures are impressive all on their own, they may also provide the people living around the Dead Sea with some essential information.

These structures may be used to predict future sinkholes, which have been occurring at an alarming rate in the area.

Sinkholes in this region occur because of the dissolution of large layers of salt in the subsoil.

This is a process known as karstification.

The team researching these structures found that the chimney structures form in areas near where future sinkholes occurred.

Dr. Christian Siebert from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research put out a statement in which he said:

“This makes the white smokers an outstanding forecasting tool for locating areas that are at risk of collapse in the near future. This would be the only method to date, and a highly efficient one, for identifying regions at risk of imminent collapse.”

Having the ability to predict sinkholes would be a lifesaving function for these shimmering plumes growing at the bottom of the Dead Sea.

Beautiful and functional.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about why we should be worried about the leak in the bottom of the ocean.