Sure enough, the prehistoric Earth was rocky.
New research found it The asteroid that kills the dinosaurswhich struck Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago, also caused a “massive earthquake” that shook the planet weeks to months after the impact, EurekAlert reported.
Upon impact of the 10-kilometre space rock, there was seismic activity that was estimated to be 50,000 times stronger than the devastating 9.1 earthquake that devastated Indonesia’s Sumatra in 2004.
Geologist Herman Dario Bermudez — who has spent the past year across Texas, Alabama and Mississippi studying notable rock formations that still show faults and fissures likely from the extinction event — thinks this new set of data complements his findings from the Southern Hemisphere. in 2014.
While on Colombia’s Gorgonilla Island, Bermúdez found spherical deposits — also known as layers of rock with tiny glass grains — among more evidence of the massive earthquake. Those beads were the result of heat and pressure from the asteroid melting into the Earth after the collision, ejecting the molten balls into the atmosphere, which landed back on the planet as glass due to gravity.
He also found fragments called “tektites” and “microtikites”, which were launched to Earth from the asteroid.
Stable Columbian rocks are thought to “tell a story from the ocean floor,” specifically about 2 kilometers deep. Bermudez found that layers of clay and sandstone millions of years old are still preserved in the current outcrop due to impact vibration.
“It’s one of the best preserved and was located deep in the ocean, so it wasn’t affected by the tidal waves,” he said.
Just above those deposits, fern spores that indicated the first recovery of plant life after the asteroid impact were also preserved.
Bermúdez has also documented evidence of a large-scale tsunami that resulted from the impact.
Recently reported That the flood waters rose near space The entire planet was practically swamped upon replaying the “mile on altitude” effect.
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