[meteorite-list] 2004 MN4 size estimate

From: Herbert Raab <herbert.raab_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Dec 27 14:17:44 2004
Message-ID: <41D06DCB.15232.3C00B7_at_localhost>

Marcin Cimala wrote:

> As You all see in TV, Indonesia and other countries was devastated by
> Tsunami produced by big Earthquake. How You think, what size of
> meteorite/asteroide can produce the same effects ?
> 10m? 50m ? Ofcourse, impact in the same place where was earthquake center.

I can't give a precise answert to that question, but I think that a 10m or 50m
asteroid would be to small. You would probably need an asteroid in the 100m
range to cause these effects over thousands of kilometers.

There is, however, a simulation of a 1.1km asteroid impacting ~500km before
the US east coast. It generates Tsunamis up to >100m in height on the US
coastline, and ~10m on the European coast. A graph showing this is available
here:

  http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/1950da/Ward_Asphaug_fig2_martin-SMALL.jpg

The full paper (5.5MB pdf) can be downloaded here:

  http://es.ucsc.edu/~ward/papers/gji_final_35N.pdf

Best greetings,

  Herbert Raab
Received on Mon 27 Dec 2004 02:17:15 PM PST