The dating of the salt layer is based on correlation to a nearby-dated core. See David Neev, The Dead Sea, Report Q/2/64 (Jerusalem: Geological Survey of Israel, 1964). See also David Neev and Kenneth O. Emery, The Destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, and Jericho (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995). We use the basic sedimentary evidence of Neev and Emery and the chronology suggested originally by Neev (1964) for the sediments.