The impact of a dinosaur-killing asteroid ended the Age of Reptiles with a cataclysmic surge of mile-high waves that killed the majority of terrestrial and sea animals.
An asteroid collided with the earth, causing a tsunami of unimaginable proportions to travel from the Mexican Gulf to the other side of the world. Chicxulub nearly wiped-out animals in a mass extinction event.
Cataclysmic Event's Effect Reached the Sea Bottom
A lead author of the study, Molly Range, who did the computer modeling of this destructive event, stated the facts of the hypothesis.
A tsunami wave would scrape the bottom of the sea as well as the surface of an unprotected land area; neither the world above nor below was spared, reported Live Science.
Findings about the giant tsunami presented in 2019 at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting are now published online on October 4 by the journal of AGU Advances.
Prior findings indicated the asteroid was 14 kilometers wide and reached 27,000 mph before impact; it killed many non-avian species, and most plants and terrestrial and aquatic animals died.
Aside from the impact on other effects such as global fires, the production of sulfuric acid rain, and a total freeze, it resulted in Armageddon from the dinosaur-killer asteroid.
The massive wave would have left 120 boundary sections or marine sedimentation before or after the asteroid strike that abruptly ended the Cretaceous. Range added that these boundary sections were within the wave height and distance predictions.
Study Reveals More Evidence
Compared to the December 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake tsunami, the Chicxulub wave was 30,000 times more.
An impact crater left by Chicxulub was 100 miles wide and set up debris from the land covering the earth and cooling it.
Within 2.5 minutes of the world-killer rock, it was followed by water rising to 4.5 kilometers high, which fell back and caused the global surge. At precisely 10 minutes, when the 1.5-mile tsunami was generated 2020 kilometers from the center of impact in the Gulf of Mexico.
A torrent of water would be out in the North Atlantic after an hour, and by four hours, it would reach the Central American Seaway. It lies between North and South America and then into the Pacific Ocean, citing Science Alert.
In that time, after impact in which, the wave would go through the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, then hit all the coastlines on the other side of the world.
Tsunamis More Powerful in Any Period on Earth
Based on the model's calculations, where the water rushed at more than 0.6 km/h, it had the power to scrape the bottom of the sea and kill aquatic creatures on land.
But some portions of the globe were spared, like the Southern Atlantic, Pacific North, and Indian Ocean part of the Mediterranean sea today seen in the model outcome via computer. Wave speed was less than 0.4 mph at most; not as powerful.
Significant signs like rocky deposits from Mexico to eastern New Zealand's north and south islands; are 12,000 kilometers away. It seems these outcrops were not from tectonic activity, as thought before.
The evidence of age and location in the Tsunamis path caused by the impact's surge and the range added to the deposits are signs of the tsunami's ancient path.
According to the study, this dinosaur-killer asteroid caused mile-high waves that changed the geography, topology, flora, and fauna like a significant rewrite in the earth's history.
