Red sea and dead sea

Hi Kids,

Remember about last week story by Kak Ipei? When God instruct Israelites to cross Jordan river, He helped them to do it. Israelites just need to trust God and follow His commands!

Some of you asking why Red Sea is named after Red color?
Here is a map of Red sea….between Saudi Arabia and Egypt. This is the sea which was parted by Moses with God’s help.


Picture 1. Location of Red Sea

There are many opinions why is it called Red. Here are some opinions about why Red sea is named after “red”:
1. It was near a land name “Edom” (in ancient time) which in English means “red”.
2. Because the mountains surrounding are made from reddish minerals.
3. Because of a type of algae called Trichodesmium erythraeum which is found in the sea. When these blooms of algae die off they appear to turn the blue-green color of the ocean to a reddish-brown.


Picture 2. Algae Trichodesmium erythraeum under microscope

So Red sea doesn’t always look red…:-). This answer is the most common answer I found over internet.


Picture 3. Red sea which looks reddish because of Trichodesmium erythraeum algae

What about Dead Sea? I heard some of you asking also why dead sea is named after a word “dead”.

Take a look at the picture below:


Picture 4. Dead sea location

The face of dead sea lies 400m below sea level….it is like a basin, where waters are entrapped there, along with the minerals and salts carried by the water. Because of that, it become the saltiest sea in the world…around 8.9 times more salty than normal sea. And because of that, there is no fish or animal live in it…therefore it is called “dead”.

And thanks to the salts in dead sea, you can float without even swimming!


Some of you might think: “ if Jordan river constantly flowing to Dead Sea….and there is no water coming out from dead sea….why dead sea is not constantly flooding?”

There is a little amount of water flowing to Dead sea from Jordan river…most of them stopped a Sea of Galilee and being used as Israel’s main water supply, and the rest evaporates. Anyway, the region around dead sea, is very hot! And now in modern era, some companies took the water out of dead sea and sell it as medicine!

have a blessed week!