Makhtesh Ramon
Interesting facts
- The ammonite fossils that once covered its north-eastern hills ranged in size from a snail to a tractor wheel.
- A whole family of extinct bivalves, Ramonalinidae, is named after the makhtesh, where it was found in Middle Triassic rocks.
- The lowest point of the depression is Ein Saharonim, its only natural spring and the main water source for its wildlife.
- The reintroduced wild asses are hybrids of Turkmen kulan and Persian onager, because the native Syrian wild ass is extinct.
- By 1995 the reintroduced wild ass herd in the makhtesh had grown to about 40 adults.
- Geodes of the mineral celestine can occasionally be found beside the vertical volcanic dikes of Nahal Ardon.
- Arabian leopards once roamed the area but are now thought to have vanished from Israel.
- Two flat-topped table mountains rise along its southern wall, Har Marpek, the Elbow, and Har Katum, the Cropped.
- In Arabic the landform is called Wadi Ruman, and its clay hills glow in shades of red and yellow.
- The Nabataeans and later the Romans used the hilltop fort of Metzad Mahmal on the northern cliff to guard caravans heading for the port of Gaza.
Why it is worth it
From the cliff edge at Mitzpe Ramon the ground simply falls away. Makhtesh Ramon is a closed depression some 40 km long, 2 to 10 km wide and about 500 metres deep, opening below the town in a sweep of bare, many-coloured desert rock. It looks like a crater, and is often called one, but it was made neither by a meteorite nor by a volcano. It is a makhtesh, a landform named in Hebrew and characteristic of the Negev: after the sea that once covered the region withdrew and the Arava rift formed, around five million years ago, rivers began cutting into the land and carried away the softer rock layers, hollowing out a vast steep-walled basin. It is the largest such erosion cirque in the world.
The result is a geological cross-section open to the sky. The floor and walls expose rock layers up to about 200 million years old, from the time when the Negev lay under the Tethys Ocean. In the north-east, the Ammonite Wall was once studded with spiral fossils of those ancient seas, though many have been taken. In the middle of the makhtesh stands HaMinsara, "the Carpentry", a hill of sandstone and quartzite that has split into polygonal prisms, so that it looks like a stack of timber. Elsewhere there are remains of volcanic activity – the basalt of Giv'at Ga'ash and the dark intrusion of Shen Ramon, "Ramon's Tooth", where magma rose through fissures and hardened underground before erosion laid it bare.
People crossed this basin long before the road. The Nabataean Incense Route passed through it, and the ruins of Khan Saharonim, a caravan station by the Ein Saharonim spring, and the lookout fort of Metzad Mahmal belong to the Incense Route – Desert Cities in the Negev, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005. The depression lies within the Ramon Nature Reserve, Israel's largest, home to Nubian ibex, Dorcas gazelles, reintroduced Asiatic wild asses, Arabian wolves and caracals.
Getting there
Mitzpe Ramon, on the northern rim, is the base for visiting; the town has a visitor centre devoted to the makhtesh. Dimona is about 58 km away and Beersheba roughly 85 km to the north. Highway 40, the road between Beersheba and Eilat, passes through the town, descends into the makhtesh, crosses it and climbs out on the far side, and intercity buses run along it from Beersheba. The nearest airport is Ramon International (ETM) near Eilat, around 96 km away in a straight line.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Makhtesh Ramon is a geological feature of Israel's Negev desert. Located some 85 km south of Beersheba, the landform is the world's largest "erosion cirque". The formation is 40 km long, 2–10 km wide and 500 meters deep. Despite its appearance, it is not an impact crater from a meteor nor a volcanic crater formed by a volcanic eruption.
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