According to a new study, archeologists have found evidence of the largest earthquake in human history, which caused a 5000 mile-long megatsunami that devastated coastlines for a millennium.
A study in the Science Advances journal found that the earthquake struck in northern Chile about 3,800 years ago.
The study said it was a megathrust earthquake, when one plate is forced under another. These earthquakes cause more damage than the earthquakes themselves.
The study said that the earthquake created waves 66 feet high and stretched from northern Chile to New Zealand.
According to a statement by the University ofSouthampton, the coastlines of nearby countries were made uninhabitable for 1,000 years by the impact of the tsunami.
It could not have been a storm that put them there, asArcheologists found evidence of marine sediments very high up and a long way inland.
Archeologists excavated stone structures built by humans on the northern coast of Chile.
The structures were lying backward, facing the sea, suggesting they had been destroyed by the wave.
It was over 1000 years before people returned to live at the coast again after the huge social upheaval that followed the earthquakes.
The study was able to conclude that the tsunami reached Australasia after the research team discovered a huge number of boulders on New Zealand's Chatham Island. The study found that the boulders were dated back to the same time as the earthquake.
In New Zealand, we said that the boulders could only have been moved by a wave from northern Chile, and that it would need to be a big earthquake to generate it.
The largest earthquake ever recorded was in 1960. The Valdivia earthquake was placed at a 9.2 magnitude. Up to 6,000 deaths were caused by a wave that hit Hawaii.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
