manuscript submitted to JGR: Solid Earth Attenuation of rock salt: Ultrasonic lab analysis of Gulf 1 of Mexico coastal samples 2 Jingjing Zong 1,2 , Robert R. Stewart 1 , and Nikolay Dyaur 1 3 1 University of Houston 4 2 National University of Singapore 5 Key Points: 6 • Elastic properties of Gulf of Mexico (GoM) coastal rock salt 7 • Ultrasonic pulse-transmission measurements 8 • Vibrational attenuation factor or quality factor (Q) determined by the spectral 9 ratio method 10 Corresponding author: Jingjing Zong, jjingzong@gmail.com –1– This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1029/2019JB019025 ©2020 American Geophysical Union. All rights reserved.