死海不死：探險家稱海底火山口充滿生命力

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。據英國《每日郵報》9月29日報道，死海一向以沒有生命跡象而聞名，但現在它恐怕要重新命名了，因爲科學家們在死海底部發現了巨大的火山口，從中噴涌出富含細菌的新鮮淡水。

死海位於約旦和以色列的邊境線上，其高密度的含鹽量，使得人們可以輕鬆漂浮在水面。因此死海成爲了著名的旅遊勝地。

有關死海海底存在火山口的猜測由來已久，因爲過去人們常能在水面發現一些神祕的漣漪。如今，潛水者們已經證實，在海底大約一百英尺深的地方實際存在着三十個火山口。

火山口第一次被發現是在2010年，來自德國馬克斯普朗克研究所的一支潛水探險隊探測到了大約三十三到四十三英尺寬的火山口。

探險隊成員丹尼·約內斯庫告訴國家地理新聞的記者，這些火山口是“如夢幻般的生命活躍點”。

死海非常的陰暗，潛水者需要感受海底的落差來定位火山口的所在。

約內斯庫先生補充道：“當你把你的頭伸進火山口時，你什麼也看不見——你必須有足夠的信念和意志繼續進行探索。”

他還說，有力量非常強大的羽狀水流向上盤升，火山口中蘊藏着的微生物種類繁多，與在尋常海域岩石中發現的一樣。

激起探索隊進一步興趣的是，這些水流在海底流動時，其中的細菌即使在含鹽量如此高的情況下，也能夠生機勃勃。