Basin-scale Hydrogeology and Paleohydrology:
The movement of deep groundwaters and hot brines through the Earth’s crust plays a
major role in many geologic processes including hydrothermal ore deposits, petroleum
migration and entrapment, geothermal anomalies, and diagenesis of sediments. During the
last decade, it has become possible to quantify these processes using sophisticated numerical
models that quantify groundwater flow, heat transport and reactive solute transport within
heterogeneous, anisotropic and deforming sedimentary basins. These processes were studied
at the Dead Sea Rift. This continental rift is located at the deepest continental depression on
Earth; it is young and tectonically active, and extreme climate changes, water-level
oscillations, and salinity fluctuations have occurred. Therefore, it serves as a unique and
exciting global site to study geofluid processes. Studies were concentrated at two locations:
the fresh Sea of Galilee and the hyper-saline Dead Sea. Through these studies, several
ambiguous field observations, which caused fundamental debates among the scientific
community during the last few decades, were clarified.
The hydrodynamics of groundwater surrounding the Sea of Galilee were analyzed
using a two-dimensional finite element code that solves the coupled variable-density
groundwater flow and heat transfer equations. The surprising opposite salinity-discharge
relationships observed at the lake saline-hot springs, and the ambiguous geothermal
anomalies detected in the vicinity of the lake were explained:
1. Gvirtzman, H., Garven, G. and Gvirtzman, G., 1997. Hydrogeological modeling of
the saline hot springs at the Sea of Galilee, Israel, Water Resources Research, 33:
913-926.
2. Gvirtzman, H., Garven, G. and Gvirtzman, G., 1997. Thermal anomalies associated
with forced and free convective groundwater systems at the Dead-Sea Rift Valley,
Geological Society of America Bulletin, 109: 1167-1176.
3. Hurwitz, S., Goldman, M., Ezersky, M. and Gvirtzman, H., 1999. Geophysical
(TDEM) delineation of a shallow brine beneath a fresh-water lake, the Sea of
Galilee, Israel, Water Resources Research, 35: 3631-3638.
4. Hurwitz, S, Lyakhovsky, V. and Gvirtzman, H., 2000. Transient salt transport
modeling of a shallow brine beneath a fresh water lake, the Sea of Galilee, Water
Resources Research, 36: 101-107.
5. Hurwitz, S., Stanislavsky, E., Lyakhovsky, V. and Gvirtzman, H., 2000. Transiet
groundwater-lake interactions in a continental rift: Sea of Galilee, Israel, Geological
Society of America Bulletin, 112: 1694-1702.
Although the geochemical evolution of the typical brine of Dead Sea Rift is well
understood, its sub-surface migration dynamics have never been explained. Using numerical
modeling that solves the coupled groundwater flow and heat and solute transport equations
within a deforming geologic structure, the paleohydrological system in the Dead Sea vicinity
became clearer.
It has been proposed and quantified the coexistence of a large-scale
westward density-driven groundwater flow system in deep aquifers and eastward gravitydriven groundwater flow system in shallow aquifers.
Consequently, we explained the
interrelationships between brine and hydrocarbon migrations and the entrapment of the gas in
several geologic structures at the southwest side of the Dead sea were explained; thereby
solving a 20-years-long debate regarding their evolution.

Stanislavsky, E. and Gvirtzman, H., 1999. Basin-scale migration of continental-rift
brines: Paleohydrologic modeling of the Dead Sea basin, Geology, 27: 791-794.

Gvirtzman, H. and Stanislavsky, E., 2000b. Large-scale flow of geofluids at the Dead
Sea Rift, Journal of Geochemical Exploration, 69-79: 207-211.

Gvirtzman, H. and Stanislavsky, E., 2000a. Paleohydrology of hydrocarbon
maturation, migration and accumulation at the Dead Sea Rift, Basin Research, 12:
79-93.