The asteroid that decimated the dinosaurs 66 million years ago brought on a new era in biology.
According to new research, the asteroid created a huge wave that was thousands of times larger than anything seen before.
The asteroid came all the way from the outer reaches of the Solar System and slammed into the shallow sea in Mexico.
A signature could be left into the face of the planet by the splashdown alone. Researchers discovered that waves carved'megaripples' into the Earth's crust.
According to a new study led by Molly Range of the University of Michigan, the asteroid thrust up a wave so powerful that it scoured the seafloor and left behind a trail of destruction. In terms of size and energy, it dwarfs all other waves in history.
In what is believed to be the first global simulation of the impact of the asteroid, the team modeled the first 10 minutes after impact.
The simulation showed that the asteroid generated waves up to 30,000 times more energetic than the Indian Ocean wave that hit Indonesia in 2004.
A wave 1.5 kilometers high was created by the initial blast from the impact. After the ocean filled the gaping crater, it created more waves by bouncing off its rim and returning to the surface.
The waves traveled through the ocean at a rate of 1 meter per second.
Range says that the ocean basins halfway around the globe were disturbed and eroded by the wave.
The largest and fastest waves were generated near the point of impact in the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico, moving at over 100 meters per second.
The researchers say that earthquakes and underwater landslides in the region could have contributed to the formation of the earthquake and wave.
You would think that a calamitous event would leave scars all over the planet, but scientists can only find what they are looking for.
Scientists are able to detect more fingerprints of the tsunami now that they know how it ripped around the globe.
In light of the mountains of research it has taken to iron out all the details of the impact extinction theory.
A new perspective on a part of Earth's history has already been provided by the study.
The researchers used bathymetry data to estimate the depths of the ocean 66 million years ago. The models couldn't capture the shorelines of ancient continents, but there was no doubt that the surge of water would have been amazing.
Most coastal regions would be eroded to some degree depending on the geometries of the coast.
It pales in comparison to the global impact of the waves.
The geological boundary used to define the dinosaur extinction event was disrupted by the pounding waves.
There were gaps, slumps, and truncations in the rock sections of the core samples.
The North Atlantic and the South Pacific were the places where the waves were the fastest.
The eastern shores of New Zealand's North and South Islands are the most telling confirmation of the global significance of the impact.
The sites are thousands of miles away from the impact location.
The researchers plan to look at how the asteroid may have caused a series of waves around the world.
Scientists realized how powerful the air pressure waves could be after the volcanic eruption of the island of Tonga.
There was a study published.
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