As part of the study, the research was carried out under the auspices of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), which conducts deep drilling in lake beds all over the world with the aim of studying Earth’s ancient climate and other environmental changes. In 2010, a rig was placed in the center of the Dead Sea and began drilling to a depth of hundreds of meters, enabling an analysis of some 220,000 years of Dead Sea geology. According to Prof. Marco, because the Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth, every winter, the flood waters that flow into the Dead Sea carry with them sediment which accumulates at the bottom of the lake into different layers.