MileHigh

One of planet Earth’s single worst days ever occurred around 66 million years ago, when a huge asteroid slammed into Earth and wiped out most life, including the dinosaurs. Now a pair of new studies has identified more evidence for just how bad things got, as the impact triggered global tsunamis almost a mile high and mega-earthquakes that rumbled for months afterwards.The Cretaceous period came to an abrupt end when a 10-km (6.2-mile)-wide asteroid (or swarm of asteroids, or maybe a comet fragment) smashed into what is…

Maximum tsunami wave amplitude following the asteroid impact 66 million years ago. Credit: From Range et al. in AGU Advances, 2022Sixty-six million years ago a miles-wide asteroid struck Earth, wiping out nearly all the dinosaurs and around three-quarters of the planet’s plant and animal species.It also triggered a monstrous tsunami with mile-high waves that scoured the ocean floor thousands of miles from the impact site on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, according to a new University of Michigan-led study that was published…