Solid Earth, 10, 1451–1468, 2019 https://doi.org/10.5194/se-10-1451-2019 © Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Sinkholes and uvalas in evaporite karst: spatio-temporal development with links to base-level fall on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea Robert A. Watson1,a, Eoghan P. Holohan1, Djamil Al-Halbouni2, Leila Saberi3, Ali Sawarieh4, Damien Closson5, Hussam Alrshdan4, Najib Abou Karaki6,b, Christian Siebert7, Thomas R. Walter2, and Torsten Dahm2 1UCD School of Earth Sciences, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland 2Helmholtz Centre Potsdam (GFZ), Section 2.1, Potsdam, Germany 3University of Minnesota, Department of Earth Sciences, Minneapolis, USA 4Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Amman, Jordan 5Geographic Information Management, Leuven, Belgium 6Department of Environmental and Applied Geology, University of Jordan, Amman, 11942, Jordan 7Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, T. Lieser Str. 4, 06120 Halle, Germany anow at: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Graz, 8010 Graz, Austria bvisiting scientist at: Environmental Engineering Department, Al-Hussein bin Talal University, Ma’an, Jordan Correspondence: Robert A. Watson (
[email protected]) and Eoghan P. Holohan (
[email protected]) Received: 30 September 2018 – Discussion started: 11 October 2018 Revised: 24 July 2019 – Accepted: 5 August 2019 – Published: 30 August 2019 Abstract. Enclosed topographic depressions are character- saturated and undersaturated groundwater, as induced by the istic of karst landscapes on Earth. The developmental rela- 35 m fall in the Dead Sea water level since 1967. More gen- tionship between depression types, such as sinkholes (do- erally, our observations indicate that uvalas and the sink- lines) and uvalas, has been the subject of debate, mainly be- hole populations within them, although morphometrically cause the long developmental timescales in classical lime- distinct, can develop near-synchronously by subsidence in stone karst settings impede direct observation.