The 1,600-meter wave that may have helped decimate the dinosaurs

In May 2018, scientists documented in Campbell Islands in New Zealand, the largest wave ever recorded in the southern hemisphere of modern history.

It is 23.8 meters high.

Can you imagine a wave almost 70 times larger?

65 million years ago, an asteroid 14 kilometers in diameter struck the Earth with catastrophic consequences.

The impact opened a crater 180 kilometers in diameter, whose center is located in the current Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

Known as the Asteroid Chicxulub name of the nearest town to the crater, the celestial body would be part of a much larger asteroid that after a collision in space , would have been divided into several fragments.

Among other things, it may have helped to decimate the dinosaurs, which were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates.

Researchers from the Department of Earth Sciences and the Environment at the University of Michigan in the United States claim that the asteroid has also generated a tsunami, responsible for unprecedented destruction. .

Strength of water

According to the team of scientists, the huge impact caused a fall of the asteroid to a depth of 1,500 meters in the ten minutes following the collision.

The strength that a tsunami has ever seen.

It is estimated that its power was 29,000 times greater than that of the subsequent earthquake and tsunami, which killed more than 200,000 people in the Indian Ocean in 2004.

In a simulation, the researchers concluded that the impact of the asteroid Chicxulub had generated a thrust of 1,600 meters – four times greater than that of the Empire State Building in New York.

According to scientists, the tsunami reached a speed of over 140 km / h in the first meters.

This initial giant wave generated hundreds of smaller replicas that crossed much of the planet at high speed.

<div clbad = 19659003] There are 65 million years ago, the impact of an asteroid generated a tsunami with catastrophic consequences, according to scientists

Photo: Getty Images / BBC News Brazil

In the first 24 hours, the impact of the tsunami spread from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic.

"The asteroid Chicxulub caused a gigantic tsunami, as we have never seen in modern history," said Molly Range, senior research investigator, at the Science News site, Live Science.

"It was not until the beginning of this project that I understood the true magnitude of the tsunami."

Without a doubt, a turning point for our planet.

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