3 ms·

Would such an event in/over the ocean create a tsunami?

• taylorfinley 5y ago
  It certainly could! From a blog post by Dr. David Burney, discussing the possible sources for a huge tsunami he uncovered evidence of in a sinkhole on the South side of Kauai: "One intriguing possibility that several astrophysicists suggested to me when I presented this evidence at a symposium on catastrophes in London shortly after 9/11, is that of a large meteorite striking the ocean near Kaua`i. In that scenario, a lot of water could be thrown up on the adjacent shore, but unless it was very, very large, it wouldn’t necessarily have traveled very far." [0] Eventually a paper [1] was published that narrowed down the actual source of this tsunami to a massive earthquake, getting quite a bit of media coverage [2] at the time. [0] http://cavereserve.org/blog/?p=410 http://cavereserve.org/blog/?p=410 [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11069-016-2650-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11069-016-2650-0 [2] https://www.livescience.com/48362-massive-historical-hawaii-tsunami.html https://www.livescience.com/48362-massive-historical-hawaii-...
• q1w2 5y ago
  Not in this case since we're talking about atmospheric bolite explosions, and not ocean impacts from larger asteroids - which on the scale in question - are far less likely.