The fresh water Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee, Lake Tiberias, Lake Genezareth) and the hypersaline Dead Sea are remnant water bodies after ancient lakes that existed along the Dead Sea Transform during Neogen-Quaternary. Lake Kinneret, which is the main freshwater reservoir in the region is located in the northern part of the Jordan Valley. The limnological and and sedimentological evolution is related to the climatic history of the region, which has been modulated by changes in North Atlantic climate.

With a view to studying short term climate variability in the eastern Mediterranean, we have drilled lake sediment cores of the annual laminated sediments.

Current research:

Paleo- and rockmagnetic investigations

Our scientific plans for the future are:

• Sedimentological and geochemical investigations to reconstruct environmental changes
• Reconstruction of lake level changes in the late glacial
• Get hydrologic informations, monitoring of limnological-climate changes
• Compare the local limnological-hydrological conditions to the regional and global climatic oscillations

Partner: M. Stein, H . Ron, N. Hazan (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)