The asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years ago changed life on Earth, wiped out the dinosaurs and ushered in a new era in biology.
The asteroid also created a tsunami thousands of times more powerful than any tsunami seen in human life, according to a new study.
The Chicxulub asteroid, as it is now called, came from the outer reaches of the Solar System, crashing into a deep ocean near the Yucatan Peninsula of modern Mexico.
The explosion itself was so powerful that it left a signature on the face of the earth. In 2021, researchers discovered that its waves had carved ‘megaripples’ into the earth’s crust right below what is now central Louisiana.
Now a new study, led by astronomer Molly Range of the University of Michigan, suggests that the Chicxulub asteroid caused a tsunami so powerful that it ravaged the ocean floor and washed away sediments far away. It also surpasses all tsunamis in recorded history, in strength and size.
The team captured the first 10 minutes after the impact and the eruption of oceans around the world that is the first global simulation of a tsunami triggered by the Chicxulub asteroid.
Updating simulations first presented at an Earth science conference in 2018, the simulations showed atmospheric waves more than 30,000 times stronger than the Indian Ocean tsunami that hit Indonesia in 2004, one of the largest tsunamis ever recorded.
The initial eruption from Chicxulub disrupted so much water that it created waves about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) high. The whole space remained empty for a long time, and the sea rushed back to fill the valley, only to leave the edge and create more waves.
From there, tsunami waves of more than 10 meters (33 feet) traveled through the deep ocean at a rate of 1 meter per second to reach coastlines around the world.
Range said: “This tsunami was so powerful that it disrupted and destroyed the oceans in the middle of the world.
The biggest and fastest waves were created near the affected area in the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, rising more than 100 meters (328 feet) and moving at a speed of more than 100 meters per minute.
Earthquakes and flooding in the area could have contributed to the tsunami, the researchers added.
You would think that such a disaster would leave scars all over the world, but scientists can only work with what they find.
Now that we know how tsunamis started around the world, scientists can take information from sediments as far away as the Chicxulub Valley in the Yucatan Peninsula to learn more about the tsunami.
This is important because of the mountains of research that have been done to eliminate all the wrinkles in the theory of the extinction of the dinosaur biodiversity.
Already, this research is providing new insights into a dangerous part of Earth’s history.
To generate rough estimates of tsunami power, length, and types, the researchers used bathymetry data to estimate where the ocean floor was 66 million years ago. Although the model’s impressive appearance could not have captured the shores of the old continent, there was little doubt how amazing the waves would have been.
“Depending on the shape of the coast and the advancing waves, many coastal areas will be flooded and eroded a little,” the researchers speculate.
“Any tsunami recorded in history is very small compared to what happens around the world.”
They also showed that in many places in the path of the tsunami, scientists of the geological frontier are now using the explanation of the extinction of the dinosaurs was disturbed by the shock waves.
The main examples were gaps, falls, and cuts in the rocks – which, in some cases, geologists mistake for local events that happened later.
The greatest geological disturbance is found in the North Atlantic and South Pacific, where tsunami waves traveled faster than 20 centimeters per second.
“The clearest evidence of the global importance of tsunamis is the disturbed and incomplete regions along the eastern coast of the North and South Islands of New Zealand,” Range and colleagues write.
“These sites are directly on the tsunami propagation path, which is more than 12,000 kilometers long. [7,500 miles] away from the action.”
In the next phase of work, the researchers plan to look at how the Chicxulub asteroid could trigger a series of tsunamis around the world pushed by large atmospheric waves.
After the eruption of Mount Tonga earlier this year, scientists realized that these air currents can be powerful, creating waves up to one meter in some parts of the Pacific Ocean.
This study was published in Results of AGU.
