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The ocean waves were almost as tall as Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza, and they barreled across the red planet. Today, a team of scientists has announced the first discovery of extraterrestrial tsunamis.
A team of astronomers and geologists led by J. Alexis Rodriguez at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona has uncovered evidence of massive tsunamis on Mars billions of years ago. As Rodriguez reports, two separate megatsunamis tore across the red planet around 3.4 billion years ago, a time when Mars was a mere 1.1 billion years old and nearby Earth was just cradling its first microbial lifeforms. The two tsunamis created 150-foot-high shore-break waves on average, and some absolutely monster waves up to 400 feet tall. Rodriguez and his colleagues outline their tsunami findings today in the journal Scientific Reports.
The scientists say the Martian tsunamis were triggered by meteor impacts, which crashed into Mars' ancient water-oceans and "generated marine impact craters approximately [19 miles] in diameter," says Thomas Platz, a geologist with the team who specializes in crater formation. The two tsunamis took place millions of years apart, although they were set off by separate impacts of roughly similar size.
Read more here. (Popular Mechanics)
A team of astronomers and geologists led by J. Alexis Rodriguez at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona has uncovered evidence of massive tsunamis on Mars billions of years ago. As Rodriguez reports, two separate megatsunamis tore across the red planet around 3.4 billion years ago, a time when Mars was a mere 1.1 billion years old and nearby Earth was just cradling its first microbial lifeforms. The two tsunamis created 150-foot-high shore-break waves on average, and some absolutely monster waves up to 400 feet tall. Rodriguez and his colleagues outline their tsunami findings today in the journal Scientific Reports.
The scientists say the Martian tsunamis were triggered by meteor impacts, which crashed into Mars' ancient water-oceans and "generated marine impact craters approximately [19 miles] in diameter," says Thomas Platz, a geologist with the team who specializes in crater formation. The two tsunamis took place millions of years apart, although they were set off by separate impacts of roughly similar size.
Read more here. (Popular Mechanics)
