Genesis 19:25

And he overthrew those cities and all the plain.

This language seems to point out physical changes in the plain, possibly its depression by earthquake forces, at the time of the catastrophe, until it was overflowed by the waters of the lake. The vicinity has been, in later periods, disturbed by earthquakes. Tiberias, at the head of the valley, has been thus overthrown; in 1859 an earthquake destroyed many thousands of people in the valley of Baalbec. Josephus declares that the Salt Sea sent up in many places black masses of asphaltum. After an earthquake in 1834 masses of asphaltum were loosened and thrown up from the bottom, and the same thing occurred in 1837.