How did the Dead Sea come into being?

In this weeks Torah reading we learn that Lot raised his eyes and saw the entire plain of the Jordan that it was well watered everywhere - before G-d destroyed Sodom and Amorah. (Bereishet 13:10).

In his commentary on Chumash, Rabbi Meir Leibish Malbim explains that the area occupied by the above mentioned sinful cities was the fertile delta of the Jordan River. When these cities were overturned by Heaven a huge crater was created into which rushed the Jordan water to create a sea. The minerals released from the bowels of the earth by this great explosion joined with those waters to form the Dead Sea.

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