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Dinosaur-killing asteroid set off colossal global tsunami

For the first time, scientists simulate the worldwide spread of the staggering wave triggered by the Chicxulub impact.
Cretaceous-Tertiary Impact. Computer artwork of a large asteroid hitting Earth 65 million years ago.

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid impact (artist’s impression) spawned a tsunami thousands of times more energetic than the one that devastated Indonesia and other countries in 2004. Credit: Joe Tucciarone/SPL

The asteroid impact that helped to kill off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago also created an enormous tsunami, 1.5 kilometres high, that raced through the world’s oceans1.

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Nature 610, 235 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03085-w

References

  1. Range, M. M. et al. AGU Adv. 3, e2021AV000627 (2022).

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