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Cape Verde Boulders Indicate Massive Tsunami 73,000 Years Ago
TaleSlinger writes: Researchers from University of Bristol, UK found that boulders strewn 200m above sea level on Cape Verde, off the west coast of Africa, were ripped from cliffs below and washed up there by a tsunami between 170m and 270m (550-850ft). Researchers at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory dated the tsunami at 73,000 years ago. It's interesting that this is about the same time as the Mt. Toba Eruption and about the same time humans nearly became extinct.
I thought it was global warming, you know, prehistoric man discovered fire, lit too many of them, and off we go.
>and about the same time humans nearly became extinct.
Can't be - there's at least one living right across the street.
There have only been five "mass extinctions", the last one 66 million years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
There have been numerous megafloods and tsunamis, as well as enormous sea level rise over the past 14000 years. None of them are the cause of mass extinctions.
People love speculating "which one" is the cause of flood myths:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The fact of the matter is that megafloods and tsunamis are so frequent that there are many stories of great floods due to many actual great floods.
That's not from the Nature letter; apparently that's some off-the-wall addition from the submitter.
Since the submitter hasn't figured this out... This was a localized mega-tsunami. An enormous volcanic-induced landslide caused a huge wave to hit a nearby island. Just like other mega-tsunamis that are known to have occurred in Hawaii and Alaska. The scientists aren't talking about some global catastrophe - it would've sucked to be on that other nearby island, though.
#DeleteChrome
I thought it was the total disaster known as the world of warcraft cataclysm expansion.
Great floods are recorded worldwide throughout history.
2 or 7 of every animal on Earth on a boat? That's the bit that's bollocks.
2 or 7 of every animal on Earth on a boat? That's the bit that's bollocks.
Yeah, because the part about Noah fathering his 3 sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, when he was five hundred years old is totally believable.
As is the idea that he was 950 years old when he died. Also totally believable.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Why is this even posted here? Extinction events are well documented, nothing new here...
To pick just one of many examples, security breaches are well documented.
Prehistoric men burned wood, which is neutral to the climate ....
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Quick, someone check to see if there's an ark up among the rocks.
According to current standards, those ages seem ludicrous. Except, we pretty much know what causes aging --- we just don't know how to stop it or really even delay it beyond consuming less and expending less calories. We also know retro-viruses and other outside influences like possible protein generating bacterium can mutate and change DNA. Along with general long-term DNA mutations due to "natural" evolution.
It is not outside the realm of possibility that there was a period in our world's history where we lived longer, perhaps even even much longer -- than we do now.
When I was in Africa, I met a man who claimed that his father was 110 years old.
People exaggerate, or more likely do not know the real number and make up some unimaginably huge number because he's really old. I'd question if he could even count to 100. And remember, written language is hundreds of years old and written biblical stories were verbal stories going back hundreds of generations. You have to look at them in this light and also the context at the time they were written down. Numbers now mean different things than they meant a thousand years ago, like in the bible the number 40 occurs quite a bit iirc. Forty then meant a really big but manageable number.
According to current standards, those ages seem ludicrous.
According to any standards, those ages seem ludicrous. There is literally zero proof that anyone has ever lived to 150, let alone to 950 years.
It is not outside the realm of possibility that there was a period in our world's history where we lived longer, perhaps even even much longer -- than we do now.
And it's not outside the realm of possibility that there was a period in our world's history when unicorns roamed the skies, shooting laser beams from their horns. They later grew tired of the skies and psychomagnetically recromulated their own DNA, becoming sea-based creatures resembling sharks with laser beams in their eyes instead. Soon they'll do it again, except they'll be time-traveling sharks that fly, equipped with Sidewinder missiles and GAU-8 Avenger Gatling guns.
I mean, it's not outside the realm of possibility, it could happen.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Prehistoric men burned wood, which is neutral to the climate ....
You're obviously a Politically Incorrect Denier!
Imagine living near a beach and seeing an 800 ft. wave coming at you. The fear would have been awful for a few seconds before you were slammed down under tons of water.
As is the idea that he was 950 years old when he died. Also totally believable.
Well, we have reason to believe some trees are over 5000 years old so if you believe in the creation myth and that Adam and Eve were created by divine touch that diminished over generations that is actually one of the less incredible parts. That we don't live longer is probably a compromise between reproductive age and retaining experience and knowledge between generations as giving birth to a new healthy generation might be more evolutionary "fit" than growing longer life spans, not any true kind of hard limit. Having seen how long we have and haven't gotten in medicine I don't think we'll see it in my lifetime but within the next few hundred years of science I think a thousand year life span is possible. Which doesn't mean that I think ancient people of the past lived that long, but still far more in the realm of the possible than some of the other stuff.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I thought they determined the mass extinction wasn't caused by Mount Toba.
You're right. It was Cthulu. He left the rest of us as a snack for later.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Megatsunamis can be purely local. The most recent known megatsunami reached 525m (yes, about 1700 ft) and occurred in 1958:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Toba bottleneck was about 50,000 years ago
Sorry, all I heard was "The Boba fettleneck was about 50,000 years ago (in a galaxy far far away)".
Neither am I political incorrct, nor a denier.
However eithher you atempted a lame joke, which I did not get, or you are an complete idiot.
Hint: read a book anout biology.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The Cape Verde islands are a broadly similar island group, a thousand miles to the south. So a broadly similar history can be inferred - maybe Brazil would get hit a bit more, and Newfoundland a bit less. So you're now looking at events every quarter million years.
Don't forget the Azores, on the Gibralter-to-Mid-Atlantic transform fault. There;s sector collapse risk there too. And no small risk of sector collapses in the volcanic Carribean islands too, some of which could reasonably be expected to propagate out into the Atlantic too. Say a cumulative risk in the order of once every 100,000 years.
It is not news that these risks exist, and have existed for longer than humanity has existed. And there is nothing realistic that we can do about them. Except not live too close to coastlines.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"