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Did an Asteroid Impact Cause an Ancient Tsunami?
NYT ^ | Nov 14 2006 | SANDRA BLAKESLEE

Posted on 11/15/2006 8:00:40 PM PST by djf

At the southern end of Madagascar lie four enormous wedge-shaped sediment deposits, called chevrons, that are composed of material from the ocean floor. Each covers twice the area of Manhattan with sediment as deep as the Chrysler Building is high.

On close inspection, the chevron deposits contain deep ocean microfossils that are fused with a medley of metals typically formed by cosmic impacts. And all of them point in the same direction — toward the middle of the Indian Ocean where a newly discovered crater, 18 miles in diameter, lies 12,500 feet below the surface.

The explanation is obvious to some scientists. A large asteroid or comet, the kind that could kill a quarter of the world’s population, smashed into the Indian Ocean 4,800 years ago, producing a tsunami at least 600 feet high, about 13 times as big as the one that inundated Indonesia nearly two years ago. The wave carried the huge deposits of sediment to land.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: aljazeeratimes; asteroids; astronomy; atlantis; catastrophism; chevrons; fenambosychevrons; godsgravesglyphs; greatflood; madagascar; megatsunami; megatsunamis; mikebaillie; tidalwave; tsunami; tsunamis
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To: djf

So is Manhattan about the same size as Clay County, Minnesota, and is the Chrysler tower about the same size as the Needles in Strawberry River, Utah? I hate these parochial comments...


21 posted on 11/15/2006 8:33:45 PM PST by Skylus ((optional, printed after your name on post):)
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To: lafroste
Did Asteroids An Comets Turn The Tides Of Civilisation?
22 posted on 11/15/2006 8:35:22 PM PST by blam
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To: lafroste

Depends on the speed, size and weight, plus hardness/density. That thing must of been really movin' to go through 12,500 feet of water and then create such a crater.


23 posted on 11/15/2006 8:37:27 PM PST by GoodWithBarbarians JustForKaos (LIBS = Lewd Insane Babbling Scum)
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To: djf

Wow, this event happened around the same time that the moon first appeared in the night sky.


24 posted on 11/15/2006 8:41:26 PM PST by UglyinLA
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To: GOPJ
Well, don't have to spend a lot of time worrying about global warming...

The Libs will. They would be complaining about the pattern on the living room wallpaper while the house was burning down around them.

25 posted on 11/15/2006 8:43:35 PM PST by Mad_Tom_Rackham (Democracy: The worst form of government, except for all the others.)
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To: djf

Just ask Robert Byrd.


26 posted on 11/15/2006 8:46:28 PM PST by ThomasThomas
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To: Mad Dawg
How large of an asteroid is needed to make an 18 mile diameter crater (under 12,500 feet of water)?

About the size of Ted Kennedy or Gerald Nadler traveling under impulse power?

27 posted on 11/15/2006 8:46:43 PM PST by Mad_Tom_Rackham (Democracy: The worst form of government, except for all the others.)
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To: djf

mark for later read...thanks


28 posted on 11/15/2006 8:50:49 PM PST by tongue-tied
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To: djf

Of course not, it would have capsized Noah's ark and killed off all the animals of the world.

LOL

Leave no child behind, teach evolution.


29 posted on 11/15/2006 8:52:26 PM PST by Central Scrutiniser (Pro Evolution, Pro Stem Cell Research, Pro Science, Pro Free Thought, and Conservative)
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To: blam

Wow, that second pic is pretty telling. You can see exactly what happened.

And actually, those types of formations would seem to date it geologically pretty recent. They're probably not gonna last tens or hundreds of millions of years.


30 posted on 11/15/2006 8:52:35 PM PST by djf (Islam!! There's a flag on the moon! Guess whose? Hint: Not yours!)
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To: djf
"Astronomers monitor every small space object with an orbit close to the Earth."

No, they don't -- current, generous estimates put us as monitoring around 40% of near earth asteroids large enough to have "severe global consequences"-- we could still easily be blindsided by something that might, say, leave 600 ft chevrons behind.
31 posted on 11/15/2006 8:54:45 PM PST by verum ago (The Iranian Space Agency: set phasers to jihad!)
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To: djf
Trillions of tons of seawater would be instantly evaporated.

One of the mysteries of the Great Flood is -- "Where did all that water come from?". I guess it didn't stay in an evaporated state -- it precipitated out.

32 posted on 11/15/2006 9:12:19 PM PST by ClearCase_guy (The broken wall, the burning roof and tower. And Agamemnon dead.)
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To: djf
When I saw all those chevrons around England, I thought of this article:

The Dark Ages: Were They Darker Than We Imagined?

33 posted on 11/15/2006 9:15:58 PM PST by blam
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To: djf

"
I remember reading something about it raining forty days and forty nights, this sure would do it."

actually this might be it. the timing would be early enough to fit into other cultures' flood/rain stories (sumeria had one IIRC, and I have read that some indian cultures did as well?), and would certainly put enough water into the atmosphere to drasticly disrupt weather patterns worldwide.


34 posted on 11/15/2006 9:35:49 PM PST by WoofDog123
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To: ClearCase_guy

There's no mystery if you believe in magic.


35 posted on 11/15/2006 9:44:57 PM PST by ASA Vet (The WOT should have been over on 9/12/01.)
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To: djf

For God to throw a rock at us that size must mean that He was really pissed!


36 posted on 11/15/2006 9:50:05 PM PST by sailor4321
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To: djf

bump for later


37 posted on 11/15/2006 9:52:10 PM PST by aShepard
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To: sailor4321

That time ocean strike, rain/water.

Next time a dry land strike, fire.


38 posted on 11/15/2006 10:04:11 PM PST by null and void ("Jihad" just means "[My] Struggle", but then again, so does "Mein Kampf"...)
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To: Interesting Times

Thanks for the ping. I recall reading something about an impact off the southeast coast of Australia that put massive areas of debris many miles inland, including the remains of a Chinese fleet.


39 posted on 11/15/2006 10:07:05 PM PST by zot (GWB -- the most slandered man of this decade)
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To: djf

bump


40 posted on 11/15/2006 10:09:04 PM PST by Vasilli22 (http://www.richardfest.blogspot.com/)
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