Dinosaur-killing asteroid strike created a global tsunami, scientists say

The dino killing asteroid strike created waves as high as 328 feet in some places and likely flooded every coastline on the planet

Jon Kelvey
15 hours ago

Around 66 million years ago, an asteroid around 6 miles wide slammed into the water near what is now the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, generating a massive explosion that changed the climate and killed off the dinosaurs.

Thanks to new research, scientists now know the Chicxulub impact, as it is known, generated a global tsunami wave the likes of which have not been seen since.

“Depending on the geometries of the coast and the advancing waves, most coastal regions would be inundated and eroded to some extent," the researchers wrote in a new paper published Tuesday in the journal AGU Advances. "Any historically documented tsunamis pale in comparison with such global impact."

The new study is the first-ever peer-reviewed paper on a global simulation of the tsunami generated by the Chicxulub impact, according to lead author and former University of Michigan graduate student Molly Ranger, and shows that the waves reached around the globe, even to what is now New Zealand.

More:
https://www.independent.co.uk/space/dinosaur-asteroid-extinct-killed-tsunami-b2195479.html