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Asteroid may have caused New York tsunami 2,300 years ago.


Byline: ANI

Washington, Nov 24 (ANI): Scientists have found new evidence suggesting a giant tsunami that crashed in New York City New York City: see New York, city.
New York City

City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S.
 2,300 years ago, was caused by an asteroid 330 feet in diameter, which slammed into the Atlantic Ocean nearby.

According to a report in Discovery News, Katherine Cagen of Harvard University and a team of researchers found clues in the form of slit in the Hudson River, which indicates an asteroid impact in the past.

While sifting through samples, the researchers found carbon spherules spherules

double-contoured, highly refractile bodies in which the fungus Coccidioides immitis occurs in animal tissues. Called also sporangia.
, which are perfectly round particles that form in the extreme pressures of an impact.

"But the main thing that closes the deal is that we looked in the spherules and found nano-diamonds," said Dallas Abbott of Columbia University, a co-author on the work. "These have only been found in impact ejecta e·jec·ta
n.
Something that has been ejected from the body. Also called ejection.



ejecta

refuse cast off from the body.
 or in meteorites," he added.

The team found grains of several shocked minerals in the sediments as well.

So far, the team has only found impact ejecta in deposits in the Hudson, with some as far as 50 kilometers (31 miles) upriver from the mouth.

But, they have taken samples of suspicious-looking sediments along the coasts of New Jersey and Long Island as well, and hope to find more of the same strange minerals pointing to an impact origin.

"We've had strong storms in New York's history that haven't made deposits anything like this," Cagen said. "We don't know how big it was, but it would have been more than a splash against Manhattan; the city would have been devastated," she added.

Cagen is convinced her team's work proves an impact caused the tsunami, but admits they'll need to find the smoking gun - a crater, probably buried in the continental shelf off New Jersey - to convince skeptics.

"We're making the pretty outrageous claim that not only did a tsunami hit the New York metropolitan area New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island is the most populous metropolitan area in the United States and the third most populous in the world, after Tokyo and Mexico City.  2,300 years ago, but it was caused by an asteroid impact for which we can't find a crater," she said. (ANI)

Copyright 2008 Asian News International The Asian News International (ANI) agency provides multimedia news to China and 50 bureaus in India. It covers virtually all of South Asia since its foundation and presently claims, on its official website, to be the leading South Asia-wide news agency.  (ANI) - All Rights Reserved.

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Publication:Asian News International
Date:Nov 25, 2008
Words:351
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