Repeat of meteorite that killed dinosaurs would bring 80ft waves

BRITAIN would be hit by an 80ft tall, 500mph tsunami if the meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago happened today, scientists have found.

University of Michigan scientists and experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) used data from more than 100 studies to recreate the ocean dynamics in the aftermath of the Chicxulub meteorite impact which killed the dinosaurs.

The meteorite landed in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico and the pioneering study modelled the size, scale and progression of the tsunami it caused.

The British Isles did not exist in the same way as they do now due to the world’s continents drifting significantly since, but scientists created two computer models to visualise the impact it had on the world at the time.

A 62-mile wide crater was produced by the cataclysmic collision which initially produced a 2.8-mile high wall of water.

The wave shrunk to around a mile tall as it sped across the Atlantic Ocean as well as the Pacific, data show.

Dr Vasily Titov, the NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory’s senior tsunami modeller, told The Daily Telegraph that by the time the wave reached what is now Britain, about 14 hours post-impact, waves up to 40ft tall would have hit.

However, due to a phenomenon known as shoaling, waves swell dramatically as they reach shallower water near the coast, which, Dr Titove said, would dramatically amplify the size of the wave. “These are the tsunami amplitudes offshore, which would amplify at the coast,” he explained.

“The flooding from such waves can easily reach twice the offshore amplitude. The speed of tsunami propagation depends on ocean depth.”

The study is published in the journal