A recent study has uncovered data about the meteor that wiped off the dinosaurs on Earth millions of years ago that were previously unknown. For those who are unaware of how the dinosaurs perished, a six-mile diameter asteroid struck Earth approximately 66 million years ago, not far from what is now Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula.
The Effects
The impact of the asteroid produced enormous tsunamis, the likes of which we had never seen before, claims the new study, which was published in AGU Advances. In a study released on October 4th, researchers from the University of Michigan created the first-ever global simulation of the Chicxulub impact tsunami.
A Huge Impact
The authors of the study claim that the meteor’s landing on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula resulted in “a monstrous tsunami with mile-high waves that scoured the ocean floor thousands of miles from the impact site.”
According to the study, the waves from the Chicxulub impact tsunami traveled as far as New Zealand. The initial energy of the impact tsunami, according to the study’s authors, was up to 30,000 times more than the energy of the tsunami caused by the December 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which claimed more than 230,000 lives and ranks among the biggest tsunamis ever recorded.