The Lisan Peninsula is a large spit of land which now separates the North and the South basins of the Dead Sea

Dead Sea

The Dead Sea , also called the Salt Sea, is a salt lake bordering Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank to the west. Its surface and shores are below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth's surface. The Dead Sea is deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world...

. Its name is Arabic for "tongue." The peninsula, located entirely within Jordanian territory, separates the northern section of the Dead Sea from its shallow southern part. The northern tip is labeled as Cape Costigan, in memory of Christopher Costigan, an Irish

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 explorer who perished in 1835 from heat and thirst after being stranded on the sea for days. He took the first known boat ride on the sea in modern times. The south-western tip is labeled as Cape Molyneux, in memory of Thomas Howard Molyneux, an officer in the British Royal Navy who explored the Dead Sea in August 1847 and perished following his return from the journey.

Similarly to the nearby Mount Sodom (Jebel Usdum), the peninsula is largely made up of white calcareous sediment containing beds of salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

 and gypsum

Gypsum

Gypsum is a very soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. It is found in alabaster, a decorative stone used in Ancient Egypt. It is the second softest mineral on the Mohs Hardness Scale...

, rising to 600 feet on its eastern side.