American scholars build models to accurately restore asteroids to Earth disaster scenes

What kind of disaster scene is the asteroid impacting the earth? Recently, the joint research team of the University of Michigan and Brown University gave the answer at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union: the Hick Sulubo asteroid that caused the extinction of dinosaurs has set off a giant tsunami of up to 1,500 meters, and even caused the global ocean waves to roll.

To accurately and comprehensively restore the impact, the team constructed a meteorite impact model and a global tsunami propagation model. Research shows that 65 million years ago, the 14-kilometer Hik Suluber asteroid hit the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, causing a giant crater 1.5 km deep. The sea water rushed into the crater and then rushed out to form a giant "collapse wave" tsunami. Within 24 hours, the tsunami spread from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean at a maximum speed of 143 kilometers per hour, and entered the Pacific Ocean through the Central American sea lane connecting the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean, thus sweeping the globe. The tsunami near the impact point is as high as 1,500 meters. After extending to the South Pacific and the North Atlantic, the wave height is still 14 meters.

Researchers have further discovered that fast-moving tsunami can cause erosion and sediment damage in the South Pacific, North Atlantic, and Mediterranean basins. The sediment records in the ocean are now consistent with the tsunami propagation calculations, which is a conclusive evidence that the calculation model is accurate. Research team chief researcher Molly Lanci said that the project made up for the gap in the research field of Hik Sulubo asteroids, and for the first time simulated the tsunami from the impact to the end of wave propagation.

The researchers compared the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to show that the tsunami caused by asteroid impact was “unimaginable”. During the first seven hours of the two tsunami, the energy of the impact of the tsunami in Hick Sulubo was 2,500 times to 29,000 times that of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Of course, the huge tsunami is not the only disaster that caused the extinction of dinosaurs. The Hick Sulubo asteroid also caused a shock wave, throwing a lot of hot rocks and dust, and these hot rocks and dust triggered a forest fire. The flying dust is suspended in the atmosphere, blocking the sunlight, and the surface of the earth has not seen the sky for many years, resulting in the extinction of a large number of species.