The huge tsunami that shook Mars 3.4 billion years ago with waves up to 250 meters high may have been caused by an asteroid like Chicxulub, which hit Earth 66 million years ago, ushering in the extinction of the dinosaurs. The discovery of a huge crater 110 km wide on the Red Planet, which could have been caused by a collision. Simulation indicates this published In the journal Scientific Reports by an international group led by Alexis Rodriguez of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, USA.
By analyzing maps of the Martian surface, which were created by combining images from previous missions to the planet, the researchers identified a specific impact crater that they dubbed Pohl: a circular structure 110 kilometers in diameter that lies within a region of the north. The plains that previous studies have suggested could be covered by an ocean about 120 meters deep.
Based on the age of its rocks, Pohl Crater may have formed about 3.4 billion years ago. Simulations suggest that an impact structure like Buhl’s could have been caused by an impact of a nine-kilometer-diameter asteroid on compact Earth or a three-kilometer asteroid on more porous soil. In both cases, the simulations produced craters 110 km in diameter and massive tsunamis that pushed up to 1,500 km from the impact site, with waves as high as 250 meters (in the case of the three-kilometer asteroid), with results very similar to those caused by Chicxulub effect on Earth.
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