Bible Accounts Supported by Dead Sea Disaster Record?
New evidence suggests body once vanished, could again.
(Related: "King Solomon's Wall Found—Proof of Bible Tale?")
The salty sea—actually a lake—whose surface now lies more than 1,380 feet (420 meters) below sea level, is not only the lowest nonmarine place on Earth but also the catch basin for water flowing from much of Jordan, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine.
As such, "it is the most fantastic recorder for past climate," geophysicist Zvi Ben-Avraham said this week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.
Drilling cores collected in 2010 revealed clear annual layers, almost like tree rings, said geologist Steven Goldstein of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
White layers in the cores represent summer dry periods, when the lake slowly evaporated
