The Makhtesh Hagadol from the lookout of Har Avnon

If you are on your way to Mitzpe Ramon, you may wish to give this site a miss. Otherwise, Har Avnon is a fine lookout over an impressive example of a makhtesh. It is called Makhtesh Hagadol, and is also known as the Hatira crater. More recently, there have been attempts to call it the Machtesh Yerucham.

There are 3 “craters” in this part of the Negev – the Makhtesh Hagadol, the Machtesh Hakaton or Hatzera Crater and the Makhtesh Ramon near Mitzpe Rimon. This makhtesh measures approximately 10 km by 5 km, and is the second largest makhtesh in Israel after Makhtesh Ramon. It actually permits one to actually peer inside a mountain!

Craters are formed in three ways – from impact as from a meteor, a volcanic crater, and an erosion crater. An erosion crater is called a makhtesh and is not strictly a crater. Israel has the only examples of this phenomenon.

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Directions: The lookout is approached by a turn off from Route 225. Enter “Har Avnon” into Waze. The approach road is a well-kept gravel road with a fairly steep elevation. From the parking lot it is a 5 minute or so easy walk to the lookout. The lookout area has signs identifying some landmarks. You will see a quarry within the makhtesh for quarrying sandstone for the glass factory in Yerucham.

Public transport: Har Avnon is not easily reached by public transport. The closest bus stop is 4-km/49 minute-walk along the main road from the city of Yerucham and is not recommended.

The four ridges in the Northern Negev

The development of a makhtesh

How did the Makhtesh Hagadol form?

A makhtesh is formed on top of a mountain ridge, in this case the Hatira Ridge.

The surface rock was a hard limestone and dolomite (a form of limestone) and underneath this was a softer sandstone that formed in the Cretaceous period, about 100 million years ago. The first stage in the development of the makhtesh was a pushing up of the surface rock due to tectonic forces, mostly the Negev anticline system, as a result of the separation of the Syrian-African Rift and this resulted in a broad dome or arch. This occurred 60 to 80 million years ago. The next stage was a breaching of the hard rim by water erosion exploiting a weak point in the rim. Through this breach, streams begin to remove the soft sandstone, leaving the hard outer rim mostly intact. This occurred about 30 million years ago. From about 5 to 10 million years ago the sandstone continued to be eroded away leaving the classic steep-walled, elongated, closed makhtesh, with its exit point facing the dead sea. The erosion of the sandstone interior is continuing even to this day. In other makhteshes, the sand may be of different colors due to its mineral content, and this can be strikingly beautiful, but this is not so much the case in this makhtesh.