The Cave of the Letters Sediments—Indication of an Early Phase of the Dead Sea Depression?

The highest aquatic sediments along the shoulders of the Dead Sea depression have been found in the Cave of the Letters, Nahal Hever, Israel. The cave has acted as a sediment trap, preserving autogenic dolomite and detritic deposits. The dolomitic sediment may correlate with late Miocene dolomites within the rift valley. The morphostratigraphic setting of the sediment implies deposition within an early topographic low that existed in the Dead Sea region since ∼10 to 7 Ma