Mega Tsunami from Mass Extinction Asteroid 66 Million Years Ago Shown in Simulation by Experts

A group of international experts, including representatives from NOAA, simulated a mega tsunami that is thought to have caused a global mass extinction event that also wiped out the dinosaurs. Experts believe that the asteroid strike on Earth 66 million years ago caused a mega tsunami.

Mega Tsunami Simulation by Team of Experts

By combining numerical modeling and analysis of geological records, the team from various academic institutions and governmental organizations, including NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Lab and Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab, was able to simulate the effects of the mega tsunami caused by the Chixulub asteroid impact, which occurred about 66 million years ago.

A huge crater was left behind after the asteroid struck Earth close to Chicxulub, Mexico, and it was buried beneath the Yucatan Peninsula. The size of the large asteroid is estimated to have been around 6 miles. It is estimated that the resulting crater will be 110 miles across and 12 miles deep.

The majority of the planet's plant and animal species, as well as nearly all the dinosaurs, are thought to have been wiped out by the impact. A mega tsunami with waves that were a mile high was also caused by the enormous impact.

This globally catastrophic event, estimated to be 30,000 times stronger than any recorded events, vastly exceeds recent historical tsunamis, The WeatherBoy reports.

Asteroid from 66 Million Years Ago

The impact that ended the dinosaur era 66 million years ago was the worst day in the history of life on Earth. More than 75% of Earth's species perished during the mass extinction that was brought on by the collision of the massive asteroid with the waters off what is now Mexico.

The surface of the planet was jolted and rolled by unspeakably strong earthquakes. North American shores were battered by a mega tsunami that was over 150 feet tall. The intense heat of the initial impact plume of the asteroid and the ensuing deluge of debris caused wildfires to start even at hundreds to thousands of miles far from the impact site.

Many locations around the world have remnants of this catastrophe, but one unusual location in North Dakota has evidence that life on earth suffered a devastating blow on a spring day 66 million years ago. The fossilized fish in the area appear to have perished within an hour following the impact, National Geographic reports.

Mass Extinction by Mega Tsunami

According to a study, The Chicxulub asteroid impact close to the Yucatan peninsula at the end of the Cretaceous period created a mega tsunami that reached most of the North Atlantic and South Pacific coastlines with waves over 10 m high and flow velocities over 1 m/s offshore.

In these areas, the tsunami was powerful enough to scour the seafloor, erasing the sedimentary records of the conditions before and during the cataclysmic event. It either left a void in the records or an extremely chaotic collection of older sediments. The basins where the numerical model used in the study predicts higher bottom velocities are where the gaps in sedimentary records typically appear.

The study by Molly Range and several colleagues was published in the journal AGU Advances in October 2022.