The first tsunami was up to 30,000 times stronger after the chicxulub's impact compared to the devastating tidal waves on Christmas Day 2004, which cost hundreds of thousands of people. The traces of the tsunamis 66 million years ago can still be found in many regions of the earth, as a study by Molly Range from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and her team describes in »AGU Advances«: The impact and its effects in the ocean To the biggest disasters that the earth ever met.
Compared to Chicxulub, all other known tsunamis in the history of the Earth are fading: the tidal waves were so strong that they stirred up the seabed over huge distances and eroded sediments halfway around the world. In terms of energy and size, they surpass all tsunamis, traces of which could be detected. Especially the tsunami, which arose immediately after the impact, had a lot to do with it, as the working group was able to determine with the help of a simulation.
The impact displaced so much water that an approximately first, 1.5 km high wave was created. The ocean then quickly spilled back and filled the new crater to burn again on its edges, which created even more waves. On their way through the ocean they shrank, but they reached heights of ten meters and more at thousands of kilometers away and more than they met along the coasts along Pacific and Atlantic.
"This tsunami was strong enough to disrupt and erode sediments in ocean basins around half the globe, leaving either a gap in sediment records or a jumble of older sediments," Range says. In today's Gulf of Mexico, some of the water mountains also reached heights of 100 meters and speeds of 360 kilometers per hour. Earthquakes and landslides in the sea also probably triggered further tsunamis.
Molly and Co also show that the chalk-Paleogen border was disturbed by the tsunamis in many places. Bohrkerne showed gaps, lowering and demolition in this area, which sometimes led geologists into the miser. The mess was attributed to later, local tectonic events. The biggest such disorders were found in the North Atlantic and South Pacific. Even in today's New Zealand, strong changes have been demonstrated: 12,000 kilometers from the impact.
