The Dead Sea is famous for being lifeless, but it may need to be renamed, because scientists have found giant craters at the bottom spewing bacteria-laden fresh water。
The lake, which lies on the border of Jordan and Israel, owes its barrenness to dense salt levels, which also means it's possible to float on the surface. For this reason it's a popular tourist attraction。
The presence of seabed craters there has been long been suspected, as mysterious ripples have been spotted on the surface in the past. Now divers have confirmed that there are in fact 30 of them lying at depths of around 100-feet on the seabed。
They were first discovered in 2010 by a diving expedition from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, which measured the craters at between 33 feet and 43 feet wide。
Team member Danny Ionescu told National Geographic News that they were a "fantastic hot spot for life"。
The Dead Sea is extremely murky, with the divers needing to feel for drops on the seafloor to locate the craters。
Mr Ionescu added: "When you put your head in a crater you cannot see anything - you have to have faith and will to explore."
He reported very powerful plumes of clear water rising upwards, with the craters containing the same diversity of microscopic life that can be found on rocks in normal sea conditions。
What has intrigued the expedition further is that the bacteria can thrive despite huge variations in salt levels as the water moves around the seabed。