An Atacama super-earthquake hit Chile that was so powerful that ancient sea coasts got hit by tsunamis that ravaged coastal areas due to the energy release.
The havoc 3,800 years ago caused human survivors to stay away from areas close to the seas for thousands of years.
This 9.5 magnitude earthquake made a tsunami strong enough to hurl boulders a distance inland in New Zealand, which is thousands of miles and spans an entire ocean.
Atacama Super-Earthquake
The discovery of the ancient quake left a remnant of raised land structures or littoral deposits containing marine rocks, shells, and sea life as evidence that tsunamis reached into the Chilean deserts, reported Sciencealert.
The occurrence of previously unknown tsunami earthquakes proves how dangerous they are to humans.
Jame Goff from the University of New South Wales, Australia, stated his expertise as a geologist and tsunami specialist, saying the discovery of marine sediments as well as a variety of creatures that would have been peacefully living in the water before being flung inland, cited the University of Southampton.
Finding these oceanic materials high up or way into the islands of continents, storms could not have the force to place them there.
Scientists led by anthropologist Diego Salazar from the University of Chile; did several years of research in the desert region where the Atacama super quake happened.
This area, according to them, is likely to have a megathrust quake because it is at the connecting point of the Nazca and South American tectonic plates via a subducted tectonic plate that creates giant waves driving humans from the ancient sea coasts.
The forces in this area led to the 1960 Valdivia earthquake in southern Chile though a more powerful earthquake occurred in the northern end of Chile in ancient times. Because you couldn't get a long enough rupture in the north of the country, you couldn't have an event of that size, Goff added.
One rupture about a thousand kilometers long located at the Atacama Desert coast is a massive one. The littoral deposits were spread out over 600 kilometers of the Chilean coast that were dated via radiocarbon dating.
Biggest Earthquake Ever Recorded
These deposit sites show a paleotsunami that affected populations in the region concerned. At this time, it was mostly hunter-gatherers due to the archeological evidence showing the devastation of the giant wave twice, including how the water receded to sea, but the damage was done.
Fear over the event left the survivors moving inland and returning to the coastal areas after a thousand years. Fear of the giant wave drove people away from the sea for a long time.
Research suggests that the desertion of previously occupied areas and shifts in movement patterns and settlements' geographical configurations are likely created as resilience strategies by hunter-gatherer societies.
Over time people forgot it ever occurred. How it can happen now is a risk that cannot be avoided. More research is needed on how the events occurred due to too many gaps.
The tsunami created by the megathrust earthquake affected the uninhabited South Pacific islands about 3,800 years ago, as mentioned in Science Advances.
Atacama super quake, a megathrust earthquake, created the super-giant waves that battered inland Chile and drove humans away from the ancient sea coasts for a long time.
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