Zarqa River by the King of Ammon. Eusebius places the river between Gerasa and Philadelphia. The headwaters of the Zarqa begin just northeast of Amman, rising from a spring named Ain Ghazal ("Gazelle spring"). The river flows to the north before heading west. Rising on the eastern side of the mountains of Gilead, it runs a course of about in a wild and deep ravine before flowing into the Jordan River between Gennesaret and the Dead Sea, at a point below its origin. At its higher reaches, the river banks are mostly steep and canyon-like. Near Ain Ghazal, two tributary wadis join
Dead Sea Dead Sea The Dead Sea ( lit. Sea of Salt; ) is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, Earth's lowest elevation on land. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. With a salinity of 342 g/kg, or 34.2% (in 2011), it is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean and one of the world's saltiest bodies of water. This salinity makes for a harsh environment in which plants and animals cannot flourish, hence its name.