Perched on a cliff face in Israel’s Negev Desert, close to where the book of Genesis says the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were burned with divine fire, geologist Steven Goldstein was excitedly uncovering evidence of events even more ancient. Jackknife in hand, Goldstein carved into soft sediments making up the cliff, exposing layers left year by year going back 70,000 years by a now long-gone lake. Cleaning the face, he pointed out neatly alternating dark and light bands–primarily mud and light-colored minerals, respectively. The dark layers marked wet times, the light ones dry, that he could read and learn from–in essence a book much older than the Bible.