14 DAY TRIAL // The results of a new scientific study would appear to suggest that the area now housing New York City was slammed by a large tsunami some 2,000 years ago. The deluge was most likely caused by an asteroid impact, the researchers explain.
Even if the causes for tsunamis are now known to be earthquakes and volcanic activity underwater, there is still a large proportion of such events that cannot be accounted for by either sources.
In fact, researchers are still looking for explanations for as much as 10 percent of all tsunamis that were found to have taken place throughout Earth's history.
On the other hand, the team behind the new investigation says, it is well known that impacts caused by space rocks slamming into Earth can trigger tsunamis.
Past investigations have revealed that the asteroid which created the Chicxulub crater in Mexico fostered the formation of immensely large tsunami waves. The impact is now believed that have put an end to the age of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago.
In the new research, the group discovered telltale signs that an asteroid impact took place off the coast of New Jersey some 2,300 years ago, when a 183-meter-wide asteroid struck in the Atlantic Ocean.
This event may have triggered the formation of tsunami waves with a height of 66 feet, that may have swept the eastern seaboard of the modern-day United States, including New York.
“Our models suggest the tsunamis were up to 20 meters (66 feet) high when they entered the Hudson River,” explains Dallas Abbott, who is a research geologist at the Columbia University.
The investigator, who holds an appointment with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at the university, explains that drill samples collected from the New York and New Jersey area indicated the presence of some unusual debris, whose origins cannot be otherwise explained.
“We have layers up to maybe 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) thick. They get thinner upriver, where they're more like 6 centimeters (2.3 inches) thick,” the expert goes on to say.
These fossilized debris layer contain other telltale signs indicative of a space impact, such as very tiny carbon beads that contain nanoscale diamonds and shocked minerals.
The crater the old impactor left behind may be located in the Carteret Canyon, which lies about 150 kilometers offshore from New Jersey.
“One possible reason why Indian tribes only moved into the area relatively recently is that the people who were once there were all wiped out,” Abbott says.
“If you look at the predicted wave heights, there would have been few places to hide,” he adds. The expert and his team will detail the findings on November 3, at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, LiveScience reports.